A quick note, the following story acknowledges the existence of Santa Claus and explores his origin story.

If you or someone in the car seat next to you are not ready to hear that,

well you might want to save this episode for another time.

This is 99% invisible.

I'm Roman Mars.

Slovenia is a small country in Central Europe, nestled between Italy, Austria, Croatia, and Hungary.

It's a land of snowy white peaks, green valleys, and turquois rivers, beautiful in all seasons, although especially

at Christmas time.

It snowed really early on during my first winter here and it was just magical. It felt like I was walking through a

Christmas card. That's reporter Will Aspenal. I moved here from the UK with my wife

and young family back in 2018 because we were enchanted with

Slovenia's landscape and wanted a new life for the kids. And in that first year

we were really curious what Christmas was going to be like in this snow globe of a country.

We love Christmas and I thought we did it pretty well back in Britain

but let's just say what Slovenia gets up to every December

kind of blew us away. Like children in the US or the UK,

Slovenian kids are visited by Santa Claus every Christmas Eve. They call him

Bozichek. My nah lupzimosia Bozichak.

These are the voices of kids that I recorded at my daughter Marnie's elementary school.

Carparnese,

bumpone, pia and grache. I like Santa

Santa because he brings me sweeties and prices.

...