This is not an easy part of the world to fly in to if anything starts to go wrong or conditions start to deteriorate in any way (especially this airport compared to Rovaniemi) so if they cancelled I'm sure it was with a good reason from a safety point of view. After all the airline would probably lose its money by not making the trip.
Given the passengers on board the consequences of going ahead in gung ho fashion could have been far more traumatic than the short term disappointment of not seeing Santa this time round.