All my life I’ve wanted to go to Lapland, I actually had it on my to-do list for when I retire. It might be the child coming out in me, I don’t know. I don’t know how many competitions I entered.

LONGFORD PRIMARY SCHOOL teacher Bernie Daly says she can’t wait to tell her pupils tomorrow after winning a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Lapland with TheJournal.ie and Sunway Holidays over the mid-term break.

“I’ll be able to tell them Mrs Daly is going to Lapland,” she said.

“I’ll have photos and videos that I’ll be able to bring back and show them… They’ll probably want to come with me!”

Bernie Daly with her husband and two grandchildren.

Bernie and her husband will both celebrate their sixtieth birthdays over the next twelve months. She plans to bring her twin four-year-old grandchildren, Harry and Joe, to see Santa in the Arctic Circle on the trip next month (although the kids aren’t being told about it just yet – they’d be “counting off the sleeps and everything”).

They’re just at an age where they will enjoy it and they’re two very good boys. They’ll go anywhere with granny and granddad – they come up to stay with us on their holidays and they’re quite content.

“Their mam and dad are almost more excited than we are,” the schoolteacher said with a laugh.

Bernie’s story 

We asked readers to send in their best story about meeting Santa to win the prize – and were inundated with responses ahead of last Sunday night’s deadline.

Bernie sent us this heartwarming memory of a Christmas morning from her childhood, and a very special delivery to her Galway family home…

Shutterstock / Jay Ondreicka Shutterstock / Jay Ondreicka / Jay Ondreicka

My encounter with Santa was 52 years ago. I was in a small house in the country with 7 siblings.

I was fast asleep when I awoke to hear an engine running outside in the yard! My bigger sister told me that it was Santa and to go back to sleep and he would leave my surprise present in ‘Mammy and Daddy’s’ bedroom!

Out of fear of not getting my present I went back to sleep! Don’t know how I managed to because I was so excited!

Morning finally dawned and my Dad (RIP) told me to come into their bedroom to get my surprise present from Santa. So it was him outside last night! His sleigh had an engine!

In I go to my Mam and Dad’s bedroom and there was my Mam snuggled up to a little baby boy! She told me Santa brought him and I believed her!

52 years on I know that engine was the district nurse’s car!! Now I had eight siblings! We had a great Christmas and most of all I got a beauty set and a colouring book from Santa too!

I tell this story to my three adult children and they are amazed at my innocence back then!

She added, in her entry:

I would just truly love to meet Santa in Lapland with my husband and my four year old twin grandchildren.

I have to personally thank him for the best Christmas memory ever. Winning this prize though would surpass that Christmas memory though! Sorry Michael, my baby brother!

‘I never forgot’

Bernie chose that story to share, she said, because “I never forgot it – that must be proof enough that it’s something significant”.

“I would have told the story to a lot of people, that I was seven at the time and how innocent I was.

“It was a really cold night and I can still remember waking up and hearing that noise outside – and I really believed it was Santa.

“Funnily enough, I didn’t even have a recollection of my mother being pregnant.

I don’t remember much else about that Christmas – just that Santa was so good to Mammy, and bringing her a present as well!

Said Bernie:

My mam is still alive by the way. She’ll be ninety in January.

Bernie’s looking forward to her “magical” trip next month, she said. “To be honest I think myself and my husband will enjoy it more than the two boys.”

When I got the phone call yesterday I was just elated. I can’t believe it. I just feel so lucky.

Related: Read about last year’s winner here >