Feature: Safe Christmas celebrated in Finnish refugee centers

Donning Santa hats, two Finns danced with Christmas cheer in a circle of jubilant asylum seekers who hail from a host of different countries.

The dancers serve as instructors at a major reception center close to Helsinki which houses more than 200 foreigners waiting to be granted refugee status by the Finnish immigration authority.

In a dining room roughly 80 square meters in size, asylum seekers lined up for their Christmas gifts -- a package containing socks, soap and cold-proof knits -- from a jolly, laughing Santa Claus.

They also enjoyed homemade ginger cakes, a traditional Christmas treat.

Making ginger cakes has been one of the activities in the reception center designed to help the new arrivals adapt to their new environment. The asylum seekers, mostly young men in their 20s or 30s, have done the job with speed and willingness: rolling dough, molding various shapes and baking under guidance of the instructors.

While Christmas is a common feast in Western countries, it may be the first experience in many of the asylum seekers' lives.

"In my country, only Christians celebrate Christmas, and we as Muslims celebrate Eid al-Adha," said Karam Mazin, an Iraqi citizen who arrived in Finland three and a half months ago.

"But it is good. So many people gather together, cooking and having dinner like a happy family," Karam told Xinhua reporters.

The reception center, located not far from the city center of Helsinki, is one of 102 centers run by the Red Cross in the country. There are some 50 more centers either run by municipalities or private companies.

In Rovaniemi, a city on the Arctic Circle, Red Cross instructors need to convince asylum seekers, who mainly come from tropical climates, that there will be more daylight in northern Finland after Christmas Day.

"The asylum seekers are more vulnerable to the feeling of loneliness and depression," such as when the dark night can last over 20 hours a day in Lapland, said instructor Antti Autioniemi.

As Antti said good bye to Ahmed al-Janahi, a young Iraqi asylum seeker who has come to Finland to avoid "endless bombings and gunfights," the two agreed that at the next lesson they would "speak half Arabic and half Finnish."

So far on Christmas Eve, more than 3,200 foreigners entered Finland seeking asylum. The majority of the arrivals are from Iraq, while others may have come from Afghanistan, Eritrea, and so on.

The asylum seekers are not only learning the Finnish language, but also learning local traditions including the celebration of Christmas.

Ahmed bought a big piece of ginger cake with a colorful picture on it as a Christmas gift for his daughter. The teenage girl, still living in Baghdad with the rest of his family, could only see the gift from her dad via smart phone when he placed it beside a lit candle.

"It is very cheap, only four euros, but that's all I can do for her now," said a moved Ahmed, who has been longing to reunite with his family for four months. Endit