How to celebrate a Swedish Christmas

How to celebrate a Swedish Christmas:

The day before Christmas eve- Cleaning the house, dress up the Christmas tree, prepare the ham and get the last presents.

Christmas Eve- Time to gather the family togheter they have a huge Smörgåsbord,... this day we calls it Julbord (christmas table). 3 Pm almost every one take a seat in front of the tv to watch Christmas with Disney and Donald Duck ( a tradition since 1960). In the evening the Santa himself comes for a vist to all the children and to give them their presents. After that we have a lot of homemade candy, gingerbreads and glögg (mulled wine). The Swedes doesn´t very often visit the churches, but at the midnight mass or in the Christmas morning service (mostly 7 am or 9 am) the church will be rather full.

 

At Christmas day- It´s very laid back, eating left overs and playing with presents, reading a book or watching Tv. If you have many relatives you can use Christmas day or Boxing day to catch up
 

Boxingday- Last day of Christmas THE SALE starts, and everyone just have to go to the Malls and Shops again to do some more shopping. Otherwise we have more left overs, tv and reading:)

Robin Goodfellow / Tomten by Viktor Rydberg

This poem is known by most Swedes ( at least the elderly part of the population :)  )

What to find on the Swedish Christmas table

Here is a list of absolutes for the Christmas table or julbord.

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                                         Photo: Sveriges Radio

This is what Lucia is all about!

Swedish Lucia For Dummies from Sweden on Vimeo.

1 Advent

Advent is the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, and it also marks the start of Christmas festivities in Sweden. More people visit Swedish churches on the first Sunday of Advent than any other time of year; they come to sing the well-known Yuletide hymns. This first Sunday is also the day communities decorate their streets and squares with wreaths, garlands, lights and Christmas trees. At home, Swedes light one candle on each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, in special four-pronged candelabra. Another way of counting the days until Christmas is the Advent calendar, a card with "windows" that you open, one by one, for each passing day until Christmas Eve. These calendars, which were introduced as late as the 1930s, have become increasingly popular. Swedish radio and television broadcast daily Advent programs for children based on a specially published calendar.

 

 

 

 

During Advent many people hang luminous stars of paper, straw or perforated metal in their windows. Introduced from Germany around 1910, these stars have become a central feature of Swedish Advent celebrations. Candelabra are another common window decoration at this time of year.

Source: "Traditional Festivities in Sweden"; Author: Ingemar Liman; Published by: The Swedish Institute, ISBN 91-520-0113-X

10 November Mårtens afton

The 11 November St. Martin (Mårten in swedish) is celebrated. In Sweden we like celebrate the day before... so many celebrate it on the 10 and we calls it Mårtens afton (Martins´eve). It mostly celebrated in the southern parts of Sweden, probably because it closer to Germany, where it much more celebrated. Many people like to have some kind of bird for dinner. If you can get it and afford it, goose is preferable. As a starter you have a soup made of blood, apple and spices, called "black soup", as main course you serve the goose filled with apples, red cabbage and apple sauce. As a dessert you have applecake with vanilla sauce. Not many people know the story behind St. Martin, but the goose as a symbol for Martin is still alive.

 

 

 

Read more about St. Martin

 

All Saints' Day - SWEDEN.SE

All Saints' Day - SWEDEN.SE

Halloween

Halloween in Sweden was basically imported from the USA and started to catch on during the 1990s. But still there are not very many people really celebrating.

There are many reasons I think it may flounder in popularity. First of all: it’s an imported celebration, with no roots at all in Sweden. Halloween also falls very close to “Alla Helgons Dag (All Saint’s Day) which is traditionally celebrated first Saturday in November. This day has become a day of remembering the dead. Most people are visiting cemeteries and put candles, flowers or moss wreaths.

But there is some celebrating of Halloween. The shops really want us to buy horror masks, pumpkins, spiders, skulls and other things connected with Halloween.

 

                                      A way of making the Swedish princess cake at Halloween

                                                                                      Foto: Martin Hanner, Spisa.nu