JOULUPUKKI and five more Finnish Christmas words

The longest word on this sheet is also the best story. JOULUPUKKI is the Finnish Father Christmas, and it is built from two pieces: JOULU, meaning Christmas, and PUKKI, a billy goat, left over from an older midwinter custom. Tell a child that before they start hunting and ten letters stop looking like a wall. Compounds are ordinary in Finnish, and a child who learns to look for the join inside a long word soon stops being daunted by one.

The other five go more quickly: LAHJA is a present, TÄHTI a star, REKI a sleigh, KÖYNNÖS a garland and MISTELI mistletoe. REKI, at four letters, is usually the first to be circled. TÄHTI and KÖYNNÖS both use dotted vowels, which have to be matched exactly — ä is a separate letter in Finnish, not a decorated version of a, and the same goes for ö.

December leaves plenty of quiet gaps and this fills one of them. It doubles as a card-making warm-up, since LAHJA and TÄHTI are short enough to copy out by hand afterwards. Read the six aloud first and let the stress land on the opening syllable every time, as Finnish always does — JOU-lu-puk-ki — and the searching will go faster. Expect two of the six to be circled before the pencil is properly warm.