Telling a child Santa Claus, or Father Christmas, isn’t real by announcing his death is a bit traumatic, but that’s how a newspaper in Norway did it. The paper has now apologized for the death notice, which was submitted as an advertisement.
According to the BBC, the notice said that Father Christmas was born on Dec. 12, 1788 and died on Dec. 3 in Nordkapp, the city in the northernmost part of Norway. The funeral was scheduled for Dec. 28 at a chapel in the North Pole.
The notice was published in Aftenposten, the second best-selling newspaper in the country. The paper’s editors ran an apology and pulled the post. They called the notice “a violation” of its guidelines and “should never have been published.” They vowed to find out how the ad was published.
Let’s hope the advertisement was pulled before any children saw it. Google is still counting down until Santa leaves the North Pole, so Santa is still alive and well.