God Jul!

Stockholm: Image credit Ola Ericson/imagebank.sweden.se

 From Nicki:

I grew up in Sweden, where the traditions are a little different in some ways, but mostly it was a time for family to be together. Christmas is Jul so "Merry Christmas" is God Jul. We celebrate on Christmas Eve. The things I remember best are dancing around the Christmas tree.  We ate nuts, fruit and candy, and drank glogg in the evenings. Glogg is a sort of hot spiced wine.  We lit candles. We ate egg toddy in front of the fireplace.  There was a big family dinner, a julbord which means “Christmas table.”  That’s a smorgasbord with traditional Christmas dishes, like herring, ham, cheese, potatoes,gravad lax, meatballs, and prinskorv, which is sort of like a delicate little hot dog. There are lots of other foods, but those are the main ones.  One of the big things was doppa i grytan, which is dipping chunks of hard bread into the juices from the ham broth. We drank julmust, which is a Christmas soda. My mother made ours, but you can buy a non-alcoholic version at the store but just at Christmas. It’s a little like root beer in taste.

We also got to light tomtebloss, sparklers, while we sat at the fireplace.

Swedish decorations.  Note the traditional goat.  Image credited to: Helena Wahlman/imagebank.sweden.se

At 3 pm, most people settle down to watch a Donald Duck cartoon. Don’t laugh, it’s a modern tradition!  On December 24, about 3 pm, they always run a long Donald Duck cartoon. When I was growing up, there weren’t many cartoons on TV.  They did run them during the Christmas holidays when the kids were off from school, so I’d get up early to watch them.  The Donald Duck special is something just about everybody watches, because we all grew up watching it at the same time every year.  There’s an article about it here:

http://www.mindrepanda.com/stockholm/the-modern-tradition-that-is-donald-duck-on-christmas-eve-in-sweden

Presents were brought by the tomten,  who is a sort of Christmas elf or gnome.  He comes on Christmas Eve about 4 pm because it’s already dark then.  He doesn’t come down the chimney—he comes right to the door! His helpers are called tomtenisse.

Glogg.  Image credit: Helena Wahlman/imagebank.sweden.se

If you want to make your own glogg, there is a recipe here:

http://goscandinavia.about.com/od/restaurantsdining/r/gloggrecipe.htm

Image credit:  Lola Akinmade Åkerström/imagebank.sweden.se