In Finland We Have This Thing Called... Muumipeikko

One of the most popular Christmas gift requests year after year is Moomin, wether is it plush toys, movies, books, mugs, jugs or shrugs. It is one of those things we Finns are super proud of, and we are even ok with someone making money of it. In this case with gratitude, as most of it stays in Finland…
And for people like Christoffer, it is even something more special as Tove Jansson was part of the small minority of Swedish-speaking Finns, which goes to show that the some of most known Finnish things are not 100% Finnish (read Peter Vesterbacka) lol ;-)
The Moomin characters are strictly controlled by the governing company Moomin Characters Oy, and they handle all the licensing deals themselves, with even stricter demands. The whole organisation, even though global and massive, is run by a very tight knit community of direct descendants of the originator, Tove Jansson.
All in all, only nine books were released, (+5 picture books and a comic strip) but they have sold millions of copies, translated into more than 50 languages. Tove also painted, drew and wrote plays. She was a real multi-talented artist and according to the Managing Director, there are still surprising things they have found of her production, in their drawer ready to be released in the near future. We are as excited about those discoveries as we are on rediscovering the beloved Moomin characters again and again.