The Tomte World Cup comes to a stop

Some of you may have thought there's only one but Sweden has seen a convening of Santas for years. 

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  Roaming the streets of Södermalm, Stockholm, our travel writer/photographer Bo Zaunders ran into a bevy of Santas a few blocks east of Medborgarplatsen, all full of the Christmas spirit and happy to pose for his camera. From all of them, and all of us ...

• For those of you who don’t know, “Tomte” is the Swedish name for Santa Claus, and every year in Sweden there has been a world cup where Tomtes from around the world compete to see who is the best Santa.

• In the Santa Games, Santas from around the world have competed in eating porridge, stapling packages and decorating the Christmas tree.

• This year, however, the event in the northern town of Gällivare was canceled and replaced by a Winter Wonderland Weekend in conjunction with a Christmas market. The reason given is that there is too much congestion and construction going on to make the competition feasible. Click the link to watch one Swedish Tomte talk about how he feels: Tomte VM ställs in - så räddas julen

• The games might return at a future date according to organizers.