Boardgames on Christmas Eve after dinner and the presents is very much a thing in my family and I know it's common in most Swedish households aswell. So that's a thing we have in common haha. Another difference on the list is Santa. We actually get to meet him when we get our gifts, as opposed yours who you just hear about, right?? It's mostly a member in the family who plays him. My dad was Santa when I was a kid and he was very good actually. He used glue for his beard(grey), used a different dialect, a little makeup, non traditional Santa clothes. He was a little scary. Award winning performance 😆
Oh, there is a red thread when it comes to eating julbord in Sweden! First the different kinds of pickled herring with eggs, then the salmon with sauces, then "kallskuret" = cold meat, then the warm stuff (prinskorv and köttbullar, ham, brunkål, ...). Then dessert... Rice a la Malta! And theeeeeeeeeen... CANDY! :)
It may not be a theme but you are supposed to eat it in one order: 1- pickeld herring 2- cold fish (that is not pickeld herring) 3- cold cuts 4- the warm food 5- dessert
Yes it’s more like a 3 course buffet. But i can see how it’s confuzing if you don’t know what’s what. I would agree that midsummer and easter have similar things but I think there is a logic to the food.
@@jockez3581 I min familj har julbordet till och med dukats upp så. Först med mina farföräldrar när jag var liten och sen med mina föräldrar nu i vuxen ålder. Jag har två syskon och vi är alla gifta. Våra partners har också följt samma ordning i deras familjer sååå... ni kanske är lite annorlunda hemma hos er?
@@nena5518 Jag menade inte att ingen gör så. Det är säkert jättemånga som gör så. Det jag menade var att det varierar från familj till familj. En del lastar på allt som går direkt medan andra har en tydligare ordning. Det finns inga rätt och fel helt enkelt.
Hello Gregg. I totally agree with you there is an awful lot of different foods on a Swedish julbord (at least in our restaurants) but, of course - it's varies very much where you live in Sweden as you of course know. But I think you are wrong when you say we have no order in how we eat certain things. I'm a bit old =) but I believe most of us begin with the pickled herring with some boiled egg, the salmon, well - the fish dishes and then move towards the ham, ribs and sausages (and of course the vegetables!) with Jansson through the whole, and voila! Dessert (s) but no thanks, not for me :) That's it . . . MERRY CHRISTMAS!
As you say, there's a way to go through the julbord. But I made my own rules as a young lad: First you try all the different kinds of pickled herrings, then you go back to your favourites (I avoid the boiled potatoes and have Janssons instead). Then I get more of the herring, some dopp-i-gryta (tunnbröd of course) and pigs trotters with "ättika" (vinegar sounds wrong here...) I also like to mix julmust with beer to drink with the meal. Wonderful! Yes, I'm from Norrland, how could you tell?
The stange kind of different kind of meals comes of the early middleages. It has been built up of all kind of resorses since like the iron age . And ofcourse, resent times
We can tell that you have not grown up in Sweden if you think there is no red thread in how to eat the Christmas table! ;-) I would say that the reason there is so many different kinds of meat is that traditionally you slaughtered a pig for Christmas and of course a lot of that meat was salted so it would keep but it was also a rare opportunity to eat fresh meat and you made the most of it.
On the 25th it's a big party night at every pub all over sweden. Everyone is out drinking and dancing usually. It's usually done to meet the so called "hemvändare" because people go back to their home towns once a year for Christmas so 24th is for family, 25th is for friends and partying, especially going to bars.
It's true, in Sweden the entire month of december is a time to do a few things differently. For example, in december nobody drinks coca cola, because in december, we drink the traditional soft drink julmust and there is nothing the coca cola company can do about it. The weird tradition of Lucia, where people dress up and get in line to sing specific songs that everybody learns in school, happens every year at december 13th honoring an ancient sicilian saint. The countdown to christmas is also an important custom, starting the advent sundays at least four weeks before christmas eve, when we light candles and eat saffron buns with raisins in them. For the last sixty years, a new advent calendar has been televised every year, often quite large productions with nationally famous actors participating. And of course, also for about sixty years, at 3 pm on christmas eve, the same Donald Duck program will be on TV and if they change the contents of it, it will generate more civic discontent than anything the politicians could ever do.
Yes like 50% of the swedes turn on the TV at 3pm on christmas eve to look at the christmas host light the christmas candle and then it is ”Kalle Anka och hans vänner” Donald Duck and friends. For like an hour. Then in the evening it is another popular TV program Karl-Bertil Jonssons jul that alot of swedes look but not as many as Kalle .
For Julbord, of course there is a pattern! Actually two patterns! You start with the fish. Herring, cold salmon, eel and all of it (including hard boiled eggs). Some cooked potatoes can go with it. Or bread. And snaps. Then you go for the "hot" food and the meat. Köttbullar, prinskorv, skinka, rostbiff and anything similar. Here is where the rödbetssallad can come into play. Plus eventually some more cooked potatoes. Or bread. And snaps. Then it is time for Janssons frestelse. Don´t eat too much of it, you will need some leftovers later (when you wake up the next day). Drink more snaps. Then you go for the sweet stuff. There should be marzipan somewhere, and some chocolate too. And snaps. The two patterns are not hard to spot, right? :D When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I managed TWO rounds of the above. That is how you get the Viking badge nowadays.
But after the sill you’re already stuffed. My technique is to only eat my favourites, and ditch the rest, to be able to enjoy the food without getting too full :)
If youŕe interested in how Swedish Christmas food and traditions have evolved through history I strongly recommend the christmas ep of "Historieätarna" , recommend the series as a whole too. The first two seasons are on YT. God Jul!
This year we won't watch Donald Duck at three o'clock. Swedish Television have taken the desicion to start five minutes past three. This have of course caused an uproar in all social media and if they cancel Ferdinand the Bull on top of this, we will be awfully close to a revolution.
Very much guessing in this thread. Saw only one who had the correct answer. It was decided around 300 AC that Jesus was probably born on December 25, but different countries had different ideas about when a new day began. We who celebrate 24 come from countries that considered that a "dygn" started in the evening. If you think about it, we celebrate in the evening and everyone who celebrates 25 celebrates in the morning, so there is not much difference in time. So it probably has nothing to do with when the shops were open or when it was a red day and a good time to be hungover. 🤣 Do not think it was a thing when Sweden just became Christian. Btw is probably everyone wrong because scientists now believe that Jesus was born in the spring. The British Royal Family, like us, is celebrating the 24th due to their German connection.
You’re missing the fact that a Swedish feast traditionally is a Smärgåsbord, meaning a buffet of many small dishes including fish , pork, veg and potatodishes and various breads. Just like Midsummer, only for winter you slaughter a pig you’ve been fattening up since spring, so all things made from the pig including trotters, sausages, glazed ham, patés etc are added. And lutfisk, which is bacalao in Portugese, dried white fish cooked in a sortof bread sauce (mainly milk). Sill was part of everyday meals in the past all year round, the main source of fat and protein, differences only in the spices and pickles according to season. So if Turkey is a US thing, Duck a French one, goose in some counties, in Sweden it’s pork and warm fish. Janssons frestelse is just potato with a bit of Swedish tinned anchovies but the added cream and loads of butter make it a luxury back in the day. The cakes, busquits and sweets are all very specific for the holiday, but so is. Christmas pudding and mince pies? Cabbage is a ti g in all northern European countries as it keeps well until late in the season, like winter apples, raisins amd nuts. The cohesive thread is always economy and what’s available in freezing midwinter temperatures,-and that one traditional sacrificial animal (to the winter solstice originally) representing abundance and renewal of life (spring). If you go far back as mideval times and before the sacrifice was a goat. Also the god Thor’s wagon was drawn by two Billy goats and it ised to be the Christmas goat that came with gifts, only in the mid 1900’s was he repalced with Santa Clause. Glögg has it’s counterparts in Britiah mulled wine and Christmas Ales, and American eggnogg with rum or brandy. Only Swedes perhaps have it more often… I agree it makes little sense to celebrate whilst waiting for the birth of the child (who does that?) so that IS weird. But church service on xmas day is at 6 or 7 am not like normal mass, and after gluttony so that may be part of the reason. Lucia is the Swedish version of carollers. But a story in itself.
The British/American Christmas Day tradition is the odd one out. Our celebration is much older and held out being the original pagan holiday far longer than in the UK.
Agreed. December 24 isn't a red day since it doesn't have anything to do with Christianity. Every Sunday is red but December 24 isn't unless it's on a Sunday. For thousands of years (before the first calendar) people have celebrated on the eve of the shortest day of the year. At that time it was December 24 but in today's calender it's the 21'st. Lucia is the "celebration of light" and was originally intended to ask the goods for light and heat (summer). We know that Lucia has been celebrated at least since 300 bc which is about 1100 years before the first Christian missionary came to Sweden and 600 years before Rome became Christian. The Christmas celebration should be moved to the 21'st to stay true to the original meaning but it got hijacked by Christianity and hence changed when the calendar changed (first change was in the early 3rd century/ long before Sweden became Christian). British Christmas is based on Christianity but Swedish christmas isn't. That's why we eat ham and they don't (pork was forbidden for christians until the old testament became outdated).
@@boek2777 During the 18th century, ham became common in some mansions, but not in the general public. The grilled ham became popular in the 19th century but did not become common until the 20th century. For a long time, the fine ham was saved for later occasions and instead a decorated pig's head, a so-called Christmas hay, was placed on the Christmas table.
The reason to why Sweden celebrates on the 24th instead of the 25th goes back to the past, when we were an agricultural society, when the end of the day was determined by the sun, and not by the time of a clock. In those days one considered that the day was over when the sun set. When it was dark, you could not continue to work, so the day was over. And by that, consequently, the next day had started. So when the sun set on the 24th of December, that day was over, and Christmas celebrations could start with the Christmas dinner. The tradtion stayed put, and has, through out the years, developed into that we celebrate Christmas all day on the 24th. Not only in the evening after the sunset, as it was before.
Board games is a very big thing on Christmas in Sweden! And it isn’t about making ”all your favorite meals” on the Christmas table. Most traditional Christmas dishes are only served at Christmas time. The variety is what makes the Christmas buffets so festive and special
I love the new traditions I have with partners family in Sweden. On 23rd we play the Bingo on TV and on 25th we go to the cinema which is always sold out! 😊
How to try and explain Christmas Food, if we look at Yuletid (What became Christmas), we are supposed to start the celebrations at the start of Yuletid (Which change, this year it was the 21srt of December), and traditionally you would bring any food that was for the end of the year. This means newly butchered pigs, horses, cows, chickens, the last crop harvests, the fish that has been stored (Like Lutfisk). Newly brewed beer, mead, and similar drinks, it was the time to party, not just with family, but the whole village/city. This festival / celebration was to welcome in the new year, and thank the spirits for another year of life. These celebrations were not very welcomed by the Christian church, as they saw it as barbaric (Because of the fighting), and filthy (Because of young people reproducing to put it lightly). So for quite a long time Christmas was actually banned by the church, but it didn't change for us. As time passed, and Christmas was officially named as The day Christ was born by the church, it slowly started to change. And as we started to get more food on a regular basis, like pig feet in gelatine, eggs, pork, fish, and so on so forth, it became a "staple" Christmas food. But, and this is a big but; Christmas Food has always been different from city to city, village to village. So what you can expect in one place, is totally different from another. So our authentic Christmas food is basically anything we can bring to the table. Though I can bet a few things will always be on the table. 1) Glögg. 2) Egg. 3) Sil. 4) Prinskorv. 5) Meatballs. 6) Julskinka and Fläskkorv/köttkorv. (Unless you go to my place, we just make whatever we feel like XD)
Christmas day, for me/us, is dedicated to eating even more Christmas food - with our parents, or the elders. After, just so stuffed that you feel like stuck between heaven and hell...there comes the coffee and chocolates, to round it off! :-I
I think in the old days the weekend started at 6 o'clock in the evening. Which it does also these days with helgmålsringning. After that you were free for your Sunday rest. On the Sunday people had to go to church and that could take quite some time so because of that the evening, afton, became the day for feast.
There is an old tradition of going to julotta on Christmas Day. that is, to go to Christmas Mass early on Christmas Day. This tradition is disappearing, but as a child it was magical to get in the sleigh early in the morning and go to church
I have to fight a little with you saying you're not suppose to start at one end of the christmas dinner. Traditionally there's 100 % and order to it. Nowadays many don't care but if you're doing it "correctly" it's something like this in order of turns: Turn 1: Sill, herring Turn 2: Salmon, seafood, eggs Turn 3: Cold meats. Turn 4: Warm dishes (meat balls and such). Turn 5: Cheese. Turn 6: Dessert. Turn 7: Candy. As for christmas day I think it's bit more fluid between families, I'm usually watching some Christmas movie, doing some puzzle or maybe boardgame sure.
Regarding the traditions leading up to Christmas: I agree that Sweden has more events in the Christmas build-up, but I was struck in the UK by how early Christmas starts.. the shop decorations go up so early it's almost still summer. I prefer having things kick off around the "first advent" a month before so you don't get too fed up with Christmas music and decorations (I still OD on them here, but it's a bit better).
You missed the most obvious one. We celebrate Jul (or Yule if you wish) and not Christmas. Do you put out milk and cookies for Santa? The original tradition is porridge for the farm gnome. Socks on the mantle piece? The older tradition is boots with oats for Sleipner, and Odin left a small gift in return. Christmas tree? Unsure about the origin but about as Christian as the may pole.
The food goes back to the catholic time when you fasted before Christmas. Just fish and porridge (grain) were allowed but not meat. Then celebration after fasting with ham and other meat. It came naturally to have this fresh meat in winter. You couldn't store meat if it wasn't cold out so the rest of the year it was dried or salt food. Christmas was the only time for fresh meat and fresh bread.
Almost all holidays i Sweden is celebrated on the eve and not the day. It _might_ have something to do with that in the old Germanic (and Celtic) tradition the new day started at sunset and not at midnight (as was the Roman and later the catholic church way och counting the days). It was said that "the night birth the day". In this way of counting the days the evening of modern 24th is actually the start of the old 25th. This way of counting days is also called "Florencian Reconing" which comes from the Germanic tribe Langobards (who according to early historians comes from souther Scandinavia) who settled in the area of Florence during the migration era. Spain did also have their fair share of influx of Germanic tribe during this period as well (Vandals, Goths, Suiebe etc). This was also the way the days were counted in pre-christian Scandinavia. However if this is the reason why we still celebrate eves and not the days should be left unsaid, but if it is not the reason it is one h*ll of a coincidence 🙂 The extraordinary amount of food is more then just that people qere poor and saved up. Accotding to folklore the dead came home during the christmas night and they should also have food and beer. You also never knew who came visiting during this time of the year, human or "being", and not habing enough food and beer was not acceptable you could according to folklore be in real (mortal) trouble if you could not saticfy your guests (there were actually laws on a minimum of beer you ought to brew and have home as not to put the whole region in danger; true story). Do it not sound particularly Christian? It is probably becaus it is not. Folkloric Swedish Christmas has more "Wild Hunt" mixed with "Halloween" vibes to it then Jesus birthday... Compare the "Yule goat" and the alpine "Percha Carnival"... As late as when my dad was young they stilled thought the dead came home to celebrate with the living during the christmas night and all sort of stuff we do are sprung from that.
The rational of celebrating in the evening is that Christian day begins in the evening. Something inherited from the Jewish tradition and the Old Testament where in Genesis the day begins in the evening. In Liturgical Christian churches, Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic church, Lutheran church... liturgical day begins in the evening and the evening service is the first service in the daily circle of services and prayers.
Our julbord (Christmas buffé) has expanded a lot during the last 120 years. Some dishes we think of as traditional are actually from the 60s. But there is a clear order how to eat it as someone else explained here. I am sorry if no one told you the right way to attack a Swedish smörgåsbord.
One thing I thought about a couple of years ago, it might be similar in the UK, and of course it's not the same in every family. But we have an almost complete lack of Christ during "christ"mas. When I thought of the different things we did or have in our house, the only thing I could think of that really had something to do with Jesus was the star on top of the christmas tree. Everything else was either random weird stuff or remnants from the old pagan rituals. And of course, some of the random weird stuff could perhaps have something to do with him, but I couldn't see it at least.
That’s a good point Jonas and I’d say it’s probably true for the UK too actually. As you say, it seems like things are becoming less and less focussed around the religious element of Christmas these days!
@@JustaBritAbroad I wouldn't be surprised if we had a head start in that. It was a very long time since Sweden where a religious country, and even back then we still had a lot of the old pagan stuff/traditions left in the yule celebrations. The name for instance. :)
As a Christian swede I totally agree. I don't even consider julafton as a "Christian tradition" any more, but juldagen (25th)is a much more quiet day when I can do something more serious if I want to. I don't mind this at all, it's just a fun day with family and traditions.
Hej Gregg, as Marianne says in the comments, we celebrate the eve, because the day was thought to start at nightfall. Compare with Judaism, where Sabbath starts at nightfall on Fridays. Annandagen is just a prolongation of the Christmas, even though it is a holiday in itself for St. Stephanos, sankt Staffan.
I would love an English Christmas for Christmas day, as well, plus julafton. I’m Swedish but having lived in the uk for 4 years. I think there’s 2 things sweden does better for Christmas. Firstly, it’s like a custom to be more friendly over Christmas. People are walking around being extra kind. I think that’s very nice. I didn’t see any of that in the uk. Secondly, Swedish Christmas has more natural materials like real oranges, cloves, homemade gingerbread and saffron buns , candles, maybe a fireplace, mulled wine and a real fir tree that gives off lovely scents. I think the uk had more of blinking lights and store bought sweets. More shopping, more chocolate. But I guess it must be personal too, the way we choose our foods etc. Anyway, British Christmas dinner sounds alot nicer. Especially as I don’t eat meat :)
I have loads of food allergies. None of them is against meat. Slightly simplified: i can't eat grain or seads (bread, peas, beans, pasta, rice..) or anything containing starch (basically the same thing but includes potatoes). I won't die if i do for a few days but i would become dehydrated and lose weight by eating. I always eat the same food (meat, egg and fish) but on December 24 i actually eat luxuries like potatoes and bread since i take my yearly vacation to give me time to recover after the indulgence. Yes, I'm oversensitive to white suger but Julmust is the most Christmasy thing I know. Today (the day after eating potatoes) i drink water and eat meat while refusing to be more than 5 seconds from a lavatory. This post isn't intended to be hostile but Julmust is the thing i long for (a year to the next time/glas 😢).
I lived in Germany and I will tell you their Christmas was so wonderful nothing like the states .I really miss Germany .the food is awesome the markets outside our beautiful it's so so wonderful and it's probably just as great as germany.liked putting the shoes outside the door and giving the kids sticks for being bad it was wonderful.
Love that me and hubs don't have to choose which Christmas to celebrate, we do both. Mine on the 24th and his on the 25th as it is normally done :) The gift giving. Santa comes with a sack filled with presents and hands them out, they're not sitting under the tree. The dad often say "oh drat, I forgot to get the evening paper", dashes out and sadly miss Santa's visit every year
My partner's family celebrates Christmas eve starting with what they call "Christmas Breakfast", which is really a brunch. It starts with rice porrage and ham sandwiches. And then you go from there. You basically graze all day with proper fika and then julbord in between.
Playing board games on Christmas Eve (after Christmas dinner) is very much a tradition in my family! On the 25th it's common to go out with your friends or going to the movies. Merry Christmas!
Games: We often have a game night on the 24th.. it has depended a bit on the age of the participants, but it is pretty common in many families. Regarding board games in general: I think you will find a growing popularity for gaming (in all forms, but talking board games now) in the UK as well, so although we may be slightly ahead of the curve (maybe) it's still more of a general trend I think.
Just remember that Christmas traditions are different from family to family as well as its region ofbthe country. Specially the food. What we serv is so different from family to family. I allsaw know a few British people and none of them play boardgames but me as a swede do it sometimes.
Sweden do the evenings because they used to be sunworshippers and if you do your cellebration or sacrifice during the evening/night then you pray for the suns return in the morning.
I bibeln, i första Moseboken, räknas dagarna från afton till afton. En dag börjar inte på morron utan på afton, 18:00 till 18:00. Tror ni också har, haft den traditionen i GB. Helgdagen, sabbaten, börjar lördag kl 18:00 med helgmålsringning och du kan åter gå i arbete efter 18:00 på söndagkväll. Så sent som på 70 talet jobbade min pappa på julafton.
Christmas day is a relaxing day for me, a day were you just are. Usually my family gather on Christmas Eve, then have a sleep over. Waking up all together to a big breakfast. During the day we would play boardgames, explore Christmas presents and....clean up after Christmas Eve. If the weather allows it the whole family would go out and play in the snow. The one day during the year the adults (in my family) would allow themselves to be "kids" again. Snowball "figths" a usual ending of our Christmas Day xD
Greetings from Finland! Well first of all to realy understand the big picture for Nordic Christmas celebration aka Jul. Jul is originaly came from viking culture. Vikings celebrated at the darkest time of the year feasting three days a row. It incluted heavy drinking, eating and story telling. After jul changed year and days started to get little bit more of light. Vikings eated many things but the pork meat and mead were the most important things in those feasts. So that is the reason why we call it Jul (or Joulu here in Finland) and not Christmas. Christians had them own feast that was originaly totaly different time as they were celebrating birth of Jesus, but one of the popes onted to combine these feasts becouse he wanted Nordic pagans to take Christianity for religion and that time the first viking king (i don´t remember his name right now) had become chrtistian and Vatican tought that combinating these feasts to same time would help to spread christianity in to Nordic countries so they moved birthday of Jesus to be at Jul. So there comes few things to Nordic jul. The food is variable becouse we have three day feast basicly in the backround. So there needs to be much of everything to eat during that time. Also heavy drinking has been one of the reasons too. If you are drinking heavy for three days you realy need to eat well. So basicly first day and evening there must be lots of food that is easy to eat scrabs next two days after. We still make huge amounts of food and eat it at least two or three days even in these days. And for me and many others we still are waiting Jul and over eating ham (ham is important becouse pork was the main dish) and fishes (vikings eated sun-dryed salmon) also many types of game/quarry (not so common anymore, but in nothern pats of the country you might find reindeer or moose from the menu).
The traditional swedish christmas food is heavily meat based - the reason for this is that back in historic times christmas was the time for when the farmers brought out the best of the meat products that had been slaughtered during the fall. Basically on christmas we bring out all the stuff that the farmer produced by the end of the year.
Yet another great video =) Maybe for a future video compare how Swedes celebrate New Years Eve compared to the Brits? Or maybe it's kind of the same for all of us :P
Thanks André! Fun to hear that you enjoyed it! Haha that would be an interesting topic. I would assume we celebrate fairly similarly on New Year’s Eve to be honest but now you’ve got me intrigued, perhaps I’m totally wrong in my assumption. How do you spend New Years?
@@JustaBritAbroad Before the pandemic we would gather the whole lot of our friends together and all of us would chip in on the food. People would dress a bit fancy and we would all sit down to a nice dinner together with drinks. And after that there would be more drinks with games and people would be in a nice state of mind once the bell of the midnight tolled. That's when we would just go outside and enjoy the fireworks and for those whom brought fireworks along would set them to use. This New Years Eve I've planned to have a dinner with only a few friends due to the restrictions of the pandemic. But I guess it'll be the same only with fewer people
Den nordiska seden att fira julen främst den 24 december har sina rötter i tiden före det mekaniska uret. En ny dag började då vid solnedgången - i stället för som i dag vid midnatt.
A real julbord have 12 plates: different fish dishes with bread, butter and cheese, eggs and sea food, cold meat and sallad, varm dishes (meatballs, prinskorv, ribs), lutfisk, desserts, baked goodies with coffee and avec, sweets... don't forget beer and snaps with the food!
Strictly speaking, neither Christmas Eve nor New Years Eve are ‘red days’ in Sweden. Nevertheless, most people in ‘office’ type or (light) industry type work get these days off through agreements between the employees and employer’s respective organizations, or just local agreements at the respective workplace. Compensation with additional days off when the ‘red days’ are on the normal weekend I personally feel is somewhat silly. I lived in Canada in the 1980’s and at least then state run ‘stuff’ like the post office had that system but not private business!!
Loved this video, thanks. :) We moved here a couple of years ago, and this will be our second Swedish Jul. To be fair, I found much that was familiar to my Scottish Highland Yuletides, even the gift giving the evening before the day. And the board games, yup. Can anyone from Sweden please explain Donald Duck though?
The every-different-kind-of-food thing is something I've always experienced at Christmas (and sometimes even Thanksgiving) in the US. I wonder if it's primarily informed by Scandinavian tradition. Half of my family are Swedish, but why we do it has never come up. I just thought it was normal.
@@JustaBritAbroad read post of f99mlu. A clear direction in how dishes are served and supposed to be eaten. All representing the tradition of food from a time when Sweden still was a poor agricultural country.
Though in sweden if for example the 24/12 is at a tuesday then the monday the day before (day betwen two red days) is calle a "Klämdag" = Squeeze-day ...i guess is the closest translation and a lot of employers and Unions have diffrent rules for them depending on what kind of work you do but a Rule of thumb is to expect diffrent Open-hours for stores and other service-based jobbs on these "Squeeze-days" if the store is open at all.
The main difference is that we do not celebrate Christmas, we celebrate _Yule_ . Chrismas = Christ Mass = Kristus-mäss... a Christian holiday. But Yule is not Christian in origin. That is why you see so little of nativity displays and similar.
Lol "there is no red thread to the food??!!1!!1?" Me: " dude, it's a smörgåsbord with the theme "christmas food", that's the theme... Christmas food..." 😂😂
I would think the biggest difference is that Swedes don't celebrate Christmas but Jul (Yule in English.) I know, I know, it's mostly the same holiday anyway but I feel that by keeping the pagan name it makes it more inclusive. Here in the US the political/religious monopoly on the holiday can be quite nasty, and many non-Christians seem pathetically lost. In Sweden it's not a Christmas tree, it's a Julgran, instead of Christmas gifts, music, greetings...well, you get it, replace with Jul and it can be enjoyed by all, Christians and non-believers, however they chose. God Jul! ❤
It's in fact a lot more like blot then a Christian celebration. The fact that we call it jul (yule) and not Christmas speaks for itself. We also call it "dopparedan" where it used to be a tradition to cook pigs fat and dip bread in it. Some people still does it to this day. The pig on the table use to represent the asa gods dinner where they slaughtered a pig, feasted on it and then it reincarnated just to get slaughtered and eaten again. In northest parts of Sweden they do have reindeer meat on the table mixed with blood sausage and reindeers tounge. (poor Rudolf 😆) The celebration of the twenty fourth is mostly because swedes simply refused to give up their beloved Jul where they gathered with loved ones and their servants to celebrate with the famous dopparedan. The church took the opportunity to mix the days together as to make it more of a Christian tradition instead of the heathen tradition they all loved so much. Some sort of meeting each other half the way. The swedes was allowed to celebrate their beloved dopparedan but in the name of christ. As what goes for the Christmas tree there is a lot of different suggestions. It came from Germany from the beginning, but the discussions goes apart as some believe it to actually represent Yggdrasil with the spear on the top. They later made a star the top ornament as to represent the star of Betlehem. I can't really say more about the Christmas tree but all I can say is that much of the Swedish celebrations do not have a lot of do with the actual Christianity. Nore does Lucia.
Hi Greg. We love your videos but I want to say I really disagree with you mentioning that us Brits don't have lots of traditions in the run up to Xmas. I want to share some of the (maybe more modern) traditions me and my mum friends always do. 1. Xmas movies most nights of December. Especially for me Xmas eve would be watching The Snowman and then The snowman and the snowdog. 2. Making gingerbread houses with children. Same as here in Sweden, but all my friends are always doing the houses, and if they don't like gingerbread, get the Cadbury chocolate ones! 3. Wreath making whilst drinking a shit ton of mulled wine! (Adult party wreath making nights, getting to be huge where I am in Oxfordshire) 4. Driving around town or walking around at dusk/night and finding the houses with all the best Xmas decorations and lights and comparing and voting on your favourite. All my mummy friends do this with their children. Or nowadays we go to actual places which put on light displays. 5. Going to see Father Xmas and talking with him about what you want for Xmas. 6. Pantomime! Very huge in UK and the theatre is such an important part of our history meaning that even the fun, silly Pantomimes are still considered serious or respected acting. 7. Xmas fayres and Xmas markets. We love going to them! 8. Xmas crafts with kids. Salt dough decorations for grandma , bring it on! We are always crafting stuff! 9. Elf on the shelf. I don't have the creepy little dude, but everyone else seems to. 10. Reading 'Twas the night before xmas' every year... or maybe more modernly Dr Suess 'The Grinch that stole Christmas' - both are good 😅 really what I'm saying is Xmassy themed books. 11. Writing a letter to santa and posting it in the post box. Santa writes back ya know 😉 12. Making magic reindeer food out of oats and edible glitter and prancing around your garden throwing it around on Xmas eve. 13. Mince pie and a carrot for santa and his reindeer left out on Xmas eve and a drink santa might like. In my house santa likes wine 😉 14. Xmas stockings! 15. Eating a whole Xmas orange on Xmas morning for breakfast and feeling sick 🤣🤣🤣 (I try not to let my kids do this one.... seems to be a theme for many) 16. XMAS CRACKERS at the dinner table. Wear that crown or you're basically the Xmas Grinch! Swap the crown with your sibling for your favourite colour. Groan together at that awful joke together. 17. Cook the Xmas pudding that noone ever eats became they either don't like it, or have eaten too much turkey. It's still there if anyone does decide they want to eat it 🤣 Im sure there's more traditions that always seem to happen but I this is what I've come up on the top of my head! We are in Sweden right now experiencing our first Xmas and tbh apart from the snow which is so so so beautiful and so scenic , its been very calm in the run up to Xmas so far. Leaving for UK tomorrow to get back for Xmas day!
On Christmas Eve the Santa is knocking on the door (under the mask it can be a helpful neighbour, grandpa, daddy, big brother) and when you open the door Santa is coming in. Some small children could be afraid (When I was 3 years old I ran into the bathroom and locked the door ... my daddy was Santa) and some children are not afraid. The Santa asks 'Are there any nice/good children here?' and of course the children shout 'YES!' And Santa gives a few gifts to each child (the rest is under the christmas tree) Santa 'must leave and visit other children'. Bye bye Santa! And now it's time to open the rest of the gifts. The most of people do this about 4 o' clock PM on Christmas Eve. Then the children start to play with the new things and the adult can drink their coffee with cookies and glögg. Merry Christmas!
On Christmas day you visit your extended family that you did not spend Christmas Eve with. Having Christmas dinner again and opening more Christmas gifts. And about the Christmas gifts. Santa will visit the house during the nigh of the 23:e and leave a few gifts (one or two) under the Christmas tree for the children and then vist in person after Kalle Anka (which is at 15.00 or 3pm). And that is the "go" on opening the rest of the gifts under the tree from the family (you put the "rest" of the gift some time during the day). The hours between Kalle Anka and when Santa came was sooooo long as a kid. During the evening of the 24th you eat again and talk and if someone got a board game as a gift you play. The evening of the 25th you go to the movies! This is my families tradition!
I didn't really check the comments to see if this was already explained. Anyways we as Finns also celebrate in Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. The reasoning, as I have understood it, is in religion. Earlier it was more commonly thought that in holy days like sundays or Christmas, one is supposed to be quiet and consentrate to God and Bible. So the "roudy" celebrations happened in the Eve and the Christmas Day was about Christ. Nowadays many are not religious anymore but the tradition of celebrating in Eve is still there. Also in my family it still is habit to start Christmas Day with going to church.
Well we have the gift game but on Christmas eve :) or as we say Julklapps leken:) without Ham, Janssons, sill, spare ribs Julmust and Risalamalta and the Risalamalta i am talking about isnt with strawberry sauce or lemonade sause. When i make it its with Mandarins , whipped cream and lots of vanilla but warm strawberry sauce is good 2. and all home made candy:) And i live outside Gbt Gby
Apparently, at the viking age, the new day began at dusk, not midnight. So the 25th, began after sunset on the 24th, thus the Christmas evening turned into christmas day!
I think the reason for Swedes always celebrating the "eve" rather than the "day" is that the day usually is holy day during which a good Christian shouldn´t party but rather reflect on religion and pray. For example, Swedes formerly used to "celebrate in" Lucia Day, which isn´t regarded as a particularly holy day to the church, i.e youngsters were out heavily drinking the night before Lucia Day
Alot of commentators tells there are a red thread in the order what foods to eat in a swedish christmasbuffet. In my family we never had any order at all. We took what we liked and ate it, what we didn't like we didn't eat. Simple. What meals that are in the buffet varies between diffrent families and diffrent parts of Sweden. All this do most swedes eats during the afternoon and evening on christmas, within a few hours: 1. Christmasbuffet 2. Dessert 3. Fika 4. Sweets
Actually, back in the olden days salmon was considered the worst kind of fish as it was so abundant that in regions with rivers they coud eat salmon just about every day in the week. Also the julbord extravaganca harks back toi the viking age where they ,before christian times, would get together and celbrate and have a midvinterblot, essentially overdoing it in terms of food and beer if you could afford it. However many of the dishes you see today would not have been present 100 years ago.
Christmas day and boxing day evening could be celebrated on the movies here, not so much of that the last two years however, And homecoming parties during christmas day.
In olden days before people had clocks a new day began at sundown; that's why we celebrate 24th. It's not like they could tell when it was 12 o'clock at night. So for them it was the 25th.
By the time all of the presents have been opened it's generally high time to go to bed or head back home (depending on whether you're a host or a guest)
Thank you for showing us the differences between Christmas in UK and in Sweden. That was interesting. 😊 As many here in the comments have pointed out, there is a long tradition of eating julbord and it certainly has its rules or ways of eating. I can recommend the podcast “Alla kan äta julbord” with Lotta Lundgren and Erik Haag. Very interesting and educating about all the tours of the Julbord. (Swedish language though, you might need to have it translated or explained to you?) 🤗
When you work in retail and you have to work on all the days 🥲 And then you laugh at all the others who complain they’ll miss out when Christmas is on a weekend. Like okay Karen sit down you’ll at least be off work 🥲😂
Hey! The Swedish julbord is always sectioned in three parts and tradition plus local dishes dictates whats on it (but there are following a protocol so you cant just put anything on it) This is how we normally set it up and it has looked like this for at least 60+ years. You normally start with the cold table (gravad and smoked salmon, julskknka, eggs, herrings, different salads etc) warm table; poatoes, jansdons frestelse, lutfisk, meatballs, omelette, ribs). Finally different knäck, chocolate, ginger bread, glögg and Ris a la Malta. In the evening you serve additional sandwich with ham. The day is also a) a long wait for either eat or watching traditional tv shows. Watch Svensson Svensson, and you know the tradition (2000 in the evening) God Jul!
Many people work at those red days in Sweden, it is only kinda day workers that has holiday. Kinda like office workers, small day working industry etc. But shift workers in the big industry have to work.
christmas is a Scandinavian holiday! it originates from odin and the christian church made it a holiday back in the 900's to assimilate scandinavians. the christmas trees and wreaths are a pagan tradition!
what we eat at christmas has changed a lot just in the bast 60 years. My mother tells me when she grew up christmas was the time you slaugtherd a pig and used all of the pig at christmas eve. most of the thing she ate then are not common today
Boardgames on Christmas Eve after dinner and the presents is very much a thing in my family and I know it's common in most Swedish households aswell. So that's a thing we have in common haha.
Another difference on the list is Santa. We actually get to meet him when we get our gifts, as opposed yours who you just hear about, right?? It's mostly a member in the family who plays him. My dad was Santa when I was a kid and he was very good actually. He used glue for his beard(grey), used a different dialect, a little makeup, non traditional Santa clothes. He was a little scary. Award winning performance 😆
Oh, there is a red thread when it comes to eating julbord in Sweden! First the different kinds of pickled herring with eggs, then the salmon with sauces, then "kallskuret" = cold meat, then the warm stuff (prinskorv and köttbullar, ham, brunkål, ...). Then dessert... Rice a la Malta! And theeeeeeeeeen... CANDY! :)
Two basic rules: Cold before warm. Fish before meat.
And actually it food for all types there to. I mean if the host pick a food theme you don't like in Britain you kinda have nothing to eat instead.
Brunkål?!
We have rödkål.
@@Janusmannen think it's Skåne that have brunkål
@@mockupguy3577 I know right! super simple, someone should have told him while eating julbord!
I can't see if anyone has mentioned it already but afton means evening and not afternoon, so Christmas Eve and julafton have the same meaning.
😂😂😂👌
And encompasses the whole day.
Since jul has nothing to do with christianity (christ-mas) so its more like yule eve I'd think.
It may not be a theme but you are supposed to eat it in one order:
1- pickeld herring
2- cold fish (that is not pickeld herring)
3- cold cuts
4- the warm food
5- dessert
Yes it’s more like a 3 course buffet. But i can see how it’s confuzing if you don’t know what’s what. I would agree that midsummer and easter have similar things but I think there is a logic to the food.
Nej! Maybe at a julbord on a restaurant but at home there are no such rules.
@@jockez3581 Ni låter som vildar, hemma hos er.
@@jockez3581 I min familj har julbordet till och med dukats upp så. Först med mina farföräldrar när jag var liten och sen med mina föräldrar nu i vuxen ålder. Jag har två syskon och vi är alla gifta. Våra partners har också följt samma ordning i deras familjer sååå... ni kanske är lite annorlunda hemma hos er?
@@nena5518 Jag menade inte att ingen gör så. Det är säkert jättemånga som gör så. Det jag menade var att det varierar från familj till familj. En del lastar på allt som går direkt medan andra har en tydligare ordning. Det finns inga rätt och fel helt enkelt.
Hello Gregg. I totally agree with you there is an awful lot of different foods on a Swedish julbord (at least in our restaurants) but, of course - it's varies very much where you live in Sweden as you of course know. But I think you are wrong when you say we have no order in how we eat certain things. I'm a bit old =) but I believe most of us begin with the pickled herring with some boiled egg, the salmon, well - the fish dishes and then move towards the ham, ribs and sausages (and of course the vegetables!) with Jansson through the whole, and voila! Dessert (s) but no thanks, not for me :) That's it . . . MERRY CHRISTMAS!
You´re right. The Julbord is suppose to be eaten in stages. First cold stuff then warm after that dessert.
@@Theyellowsmile Ye, the cold stuff comes first
As you say, there's a way to go through the julbord. But I made my own rules as a young lad: First you try all the different kinds of pickled herrings, then you go back to your favourites (I avoid the boiled potatoes and have Janssons instead). Then I get more of the herring, some dopp-i-gryta (tunnbröd of course) and pigs trotters with "ättika" (vinegar sounds wrong here...)
I also like to mix julmust with beer to drink with the meal. Wonderful!
Yes, I'm from Norrland, how could you tell?
The stange kind of different kind of meals comes of the early middleages.
It has been built up of all kind of resorses since like the iron age . And ofcourse, resent times
Yeah.
First cold fish dishes, then cold meat dishes, then hot dishes, lastly you might have lutfisk and then dessert.
We can tell that you have not grown up in Sweden if you think there is no red thread in how to eat the Christmas table! ;-)
I would say that the reason there is so many different kinds of meat is that traditionally you slaughtered a pig for Christmas and of course a lot of that meat was salted so it would keep but it was also a rare opportunity to eat fresh meat and you made the most of it.
On the 25th it's a big party night at every pub all over sweden. Everyone is out drinking and dancing usually. It's usually done to meet the so called "hemvändare" because people go back to their home towns once a year for Christmas so 24th is for family, 25th is for friends and partying, especially going to bars.
Traditionally the 25th was reserved for spending many hours in church. Not so anymore.
Hu. I’ve always done it on the 23rd, with a glorious hangover on the 24th.
Older people usually don't go to "krogen" on christmas day. :)
@@jockez3581 Idk, I'm 32 and me and my friends and all their parents go together, it's tradition
"Every pub all over Sweden"
More like shitty Norrland lol
It's true, in Sweden the entire month of december is a time to do a few things differently.
For example, in december nobody drinks coca cola, because in december, we drink the traditional soft drink julmust and there is nothing the coca cola company can do about it.
The weird tradition of Lucia, where people dress up and get in line to sing specific songs that everybody learns in school, happens every year at december 13th honoring an ancient sicilian saint.
The countdown to christmas is also an important custom, starting the advent sundays at least four weeks before christmas eve, when we light candles and eat saffron buns with raisins in them.
For the last sixty years, a new advent calendar has been televised every year, often quite large productions with nationally famous actors participating. And of course, also for about sixty years, at 3 pm on christmas eve, the same Donald Duck program will be on TV and if they change the contents of it, it will generate more civic discontent than anything the politicians could ever do.
Yes like 50% of the swedes turn on the TV at 3pm on christmas eve to look at the christmas host light the christmas candle and then it is ”Kalle Anka och hans vänner” Donald Duck and friends. For like an hour. Then in the evening it is another popular TV program Karl-Bertil Jonssons jul that alot of swedes look but not as many as Kalle .
It's because Santa's VIP countries get it the day before the rest.
Hahaha there we have it!! You guys must be doing a damn doing job avoiding the naughty list!!😅🎅🏼 what’s your secret?!😅
@Just a Brit Abroad Just bribe him with cookies and milk. You know the good quality swedish "fika" cookies are probably the secret.
For Julbord, of course there is a pattern! Actually two patterns!
You start with the fish. Herring, cold salmon, eel and all of it (including hard boiled eggs). Some cooked potatoes can go with it. Or bread. And snaps. Then you go for the "hot" food and the meat. Köttbullar, prinskorv, skinka, rostbiff and anything similar. Here is where the rödbetssallad can come into play. Plus eventually some more cooked potatoes. Or bread. And snaps. Then it is time for Janssons frestelse. Don´t eat too much of it, you will need some leftovers later (when you wake up the next day). Drink more snaps. Then you go for the sweet stuff. There should be marzipan somewhere, and some chocolate too. And snaps.
The two patterns are not hard to spot, right? :D When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I managed TWO rounds of the above. That is how you get the Viking badge nowadays.
But after the sill you’re already stuffed. My technique is to only eat my favourites, and ditch the rest, to be able to enjoy the food without getting too full :)
If youŕe interested in how Swedish Christmas food and traditions have evolved through history I strongly recommend the christmas ep of "Historieätarna" , recommend the series as a whole too. The first two seasons are on YT. God Jul!
This year we won't watch Donald Duck at three o'clock. Swedish Television have taken the desicion to start five minutes past three. This have of course caused an uproar in all social media and if they cancel Ferdinand the Bull on top of this, we will be awfully close to a revolution.
Very much guessing in this thread. Saw only one who had the correct answer. It was decided around 300 AC that Jesus was probably born on December 25, but different countries had different ideas about when a new day began. We who celebrate 24 come from countries that considered that a "dygn" started in the evening. If you think about it, we celebrate in the evening and everyone who celebrates 25 celebrates in the morning, so there is not much difference in time. So it probably has nothing to do with when the shops were open or when it was a red day and a good time to be hungover. 🤣 Do not think it was a thing when Sweden just became Christian. Btw is probably everyone wrong because scientists now believe that Jesus was born in the spring. The British Royal Family, like us, is celebrating the 24th due to their German connection.
"Afton" in Swedish is actually "Evening", not "afternoon". :)
You’re missing the fact that a Swedish feast traditionally is a Smärgåsbord, meaning a buffet of many small dishes including fish , pork, veg and potatodishes and various breads. Just like Midsummer, only for winter you slaughter a pig you’ve been fattening up since spring, so all things made from the pig including trotters, sausages, glazed ham, patés etc are added. And lutfisk, which is bacalao in Portugese, dried white fish cooked in a sortof bread sauce (mainly milk). Sill was part of everyday meals in the past all year round, the main source of fat and protein, differences only in the spices and pickles according to season.
So if Turkey is a US thing, Duck a French one, goose in some counties, in Sweden it’s pork and warm fish.
Janssons frestelse is just potato with a bit of Swedish tinned anchovies but the added cream and loads of butter make it a luxury back in the day.
The cakes, busquits and sweets are all very specific for the holiday, but so is. Christmas pudding and mince pies?
Cabbage is a ti g in all northern European countries as it keeps well until late in the season, like winter apples, raisins amd nuts. The cohesive thread is always economy and what’s available in freezing midwinter temperatures,-and that one traditional sacrificial animal (to the winter solstice originally) representing abundance and renewal of life (spring).
If you go far back as mideval times and before the sacrifice was a goat.
Also the god Thor’s wagon was drawn by two Billy goats and it ised to be the Christmas goat that came with gifts, only in the mid 1900’s was he repalced with Santa Clause.
Glögg has it’s counterparts in Britiah mulled wine and Christmas Ales, and American eggnogg with rum or brandy.
Only Swedes perhaps have it more often…
I agree it makes little sense to celebrate whilst waiting for the birth of the child (who does that?) so that IS weird.
But church service on xmas day is at 6 or 7 am not like normal mass, and after gluttony so that may be part of the reason.
Lucia is the Swedish version of carollers.
But a story in itself.
The British/American Christmas Day tradition is the odd one out. Our celebration is much older and held out being the original pagan holiday far longer than in the UK.
Agreed. December 24 isn't a red day since it doesn't have anything to do with Christianity. Every Sunday is red but December 24 isn't unless it's on a Sunday.
For thousands of years (before the first calendar) people have celebrated on the eve of the shortest day of the year. At that time it was December 24 but in today's calender it's the 21'st.
Lucia is the "celebration of light" and was originally intended to ask the goods for light and heat (summer). We know that Lucia has been celebrated at least since 300 bc which is about 1100 years before the first Christian missionary came to Sweden and 600 years before Rome became Christian.
The Christmas celebration should be moved to the 21'st to stay true to the original meaning but it got hijacked by Christianity and hence changed when the calendar changed (first change was in the early 3rd century/ long before Sweden became Christian).
British Christmas is based on Christianity but Swedish christmas isn't. That's why we eat ham and they don't (pork was forbidden for christians until the old testament became outdated).
@@boek2777 During the 18th century, ham became common in some mansions, but not in the general public. The grilled ham became popular in the 19th century but did not become common until the 20th century. For a long time, the fine ham was saved for later occasions and instead a decorated pig's head, a so-called Christmas hay, was placed on the Christmas table.
The reason to why Sweden celebrates on the 24th instead of the 25th goes back to the past, when we were an agricultural society, when the end of the day was determined by the sun, and not by the time of a clock.
In those days one considered that the day was over when the sun set. When it was dark, you could not continue to work, so the day was over. And by that, consequently, the next day had started.
So when the sun set on the 24th of December, that day was over, and Christmas celebrations could start with the Christmas dinner.
The tradtion stayed put, and has, through out the years, developed into that we celebrate Christmas all day on the 24th. Not only in the evening after the sunset, as it was before.
..and that’s where the ”afton” (eve) come in to play.
Italy also celebrates Christmas Eve. When I lived there I often felt like Christmas day was the day after Christmas.
@@ElizaDolittle That’s interesting! I did not know that! Thanks for sharing! 😃
Board games is a very big thing on Christmas in Sweden! And it isn’t about making ”all your favorite meals” on the Christmas table. Most traditional Christmas dishes are only served at Christmas time. The variety is what makes the Christmas buffets so festive and special
I love the new traditions I have with partners family in Sweden. On 23rd we play the Bingo on TV and on 25th we go to the cinema which is always sold out! 😊
How to try and explain Christmas Food, if we look at Yuletid (What became Christmas), we are supposed to start the celebrations at the start of Yuletid (Which change, this year it was the 21srt of December), and traditionally you would bring any food that was for the end of the year.
This means newly butchered pigs, horses, cows, chickens, the last crop harvests, the fish that has been stored (Like Lutfisk).
Newly brewed beer, mead, and similar drinks, it was the time to party, not just with family, but the whole village/city.
This festival / celebration was to welcome in the new year, and thank the spirits for another year of life.
These celebrations were not very welcomed by the Christian church, as they saw it as barbaric (Because of the fighting), and filthy (Because of young people reproducing to put it lightly).
So for quite a long time Christmas was actually banned by the church, but it didn't change for us.
As time passed, and Christmas was officially named as The day Christ was born by the church, it slowly started to change.
And as we started to get more food on a regular basis, like pig feet in gelatine, eggs, pork, fish, and so on so forth, it became a "staple" Christmas food. But, and this is a big but; Christmas Food has always been different from city to city, village to village. So what you can expect in one place, is totally different from another.
So our authentic Christmas food is basically anything we can bring to the table.
Though I can bet a few things will always be on the table.
1) Glögg.
2) Egg.
3) Sil.
4) Prinskorv.
5) Meatballs.
6) Julskinka and Fläskkorv/köttkorv.
(Unless you go to my place, we just make whatever we feel like XD)
I just spent more time than i dare to admit, saying almost the same thing as you.
Maby i should read all coments before posting 🤔
There is actually a traditional way of eating the julbord. ... and ypu don't have to eat so much of every dish, it's more like meze in that regards.
Christmas day, for me/us, is dedicated to eating even more Christmas food - with our parents, or the elders. After, just so stuffed that you feel like stuck between heaven and hell...there comes the coffee and chocolates, to round it off! :-I
I think in the old days the weekend started at 6 o'clock in the evening. Which it does also these days with helgmålsringning. After that you were free for your Sunday rest. On the Sunday people had to go to church and that could take quite some time so because of that the evening, afton, became the day for feast.
I figure eve celebrations are so one can recover from a hangover on the rest day.
There is an old tradition of going to julotta on Christmas Day. that is, to go to Christmas Mass early on Christmas Day. This tradition is disappearing, but as a child it was magical to get in the sleigh early in the morning and go to church
In Romania the holiday begins on the pervious evening, on the 24th, every holiday begins on holiday eve.
I have to fight a little with you saying you're not suppose to start at one end of the christmas dinner. Traditionally there's 100 % and order to it. Nowadays many don't care but if you're doing it "correctly" it's something like this in order of turns:
Turn 1: Sill, herring
Turn 2: Salmon, seafood, eggs
Turn 3: Cold meats.
Turn 4: Warm dishes (meat balls and such).
Turn 5: Cheese.
Turn 6: Dessert.
Turn 7: Candy.
As for christmas day I think it's bit more fluid between families, I'm usually watching some Christmas movie, doing some puzzle or maybe boardgame sure.
Regarding the traditions leading up to Christmas: I agree that Sweden has more events in the Christmas build-up, but I was struck in the UK by how early Christmas starts.. the shop decorations go up so early it's almost still summer. I prefer having things kick off around the "first advent" a month before so you don't get too fed up with Christmas music and decorations (I still OD on them here, but it's a bit better).
In Sweden it is very common to spend the 25th with your friends and it is many people in the pubs and disco.
really? interesting to hear that pubs and parties are such a big part of the 25th, I had no idea!
"no red thread"!?!? How dare you! It's all CHRISTMAS FOOD 😝🤪😁😜
haha good point, who needs more reason to eat it than that😆😆
You missed the most obvious one. We celebrate Jul (or Yule if you wish) and not Christmas.
Do you put out milk and cookies for Santa? The original tradition is porridge for the farm gnome.
Socks on the mantle piece? The older tradition is boots with oats for Sleipner, and Odin left a small gift in return.
Christmas tree? Unsure about the origin but about as Christian as the may pole.
The food goes back to the catholic time when you fasted before Christmas. Just fish and porridge (grain) were allowed but not meat. Then celebration after fasting with ham and other meat. It came naturally to have this fresh meat in winter. You couldn't store meat if it wasn't cold out so the rest of the year it was dried or salt food. Christmas was the only time for fresh meat and fresh bread.
Almost all holidays i Sweden is celebrated on the eve and not the day. It _might_ have something to do with that in the old Germanic (and Celtic) tradition the new day started at sunset and not at midnight (as was the Roman and later the catholic church way och counting the days). It was said that "the night birth the day". In this way of counting the days the evening of modern 24th is actually the start of the old 25th. This way of counting days is also called "Florencian Reconing" which comes from the Germanic tribe Langobards (who according to early historians comes from souther Scandinavia) who settled in the area of Florence during the migration era. Spain did also have their fair share of influx of Germanic tribe during this period as well (Vandals, Goths, Suiebe etc). This was also the way the days were counted in pre-christian Scandinavia. However if this is the reason why we still celebrate eves and not the days should be left unsaid, but if it is not the reason it is one h*ll of a coincidence 🙂
The extraordinary amount of food is more then just that people qere poor and saved up. Accotding to folklore the dead came home during the christmas night and they should also have food and beer. You also never knew who came visiting during this time of the year, human or "being", and not habing enough food and beer was not acceptable you could according to folklore be in real (mortal) trouble if you could not saticfy your guests (there were actually laws on a minimum of beer you ought to brew and have home as not to put the whole region in danger; true story). Do it not sound particularly Christian? It is probably becaus it is not. Folkloric Swedish Christmas has more "Wild Hunt" mixed with "Halloween" vibes to it then Jesus birthday... Compare the "Yule goat" and the alpine "Percha Carnival"... As late as when my dad was young they stilled thought the dead came home to celebrate with the living during the christmas night and all sort of stuff we do are sprung from that.
The rational of celebrating in the evening is that Christian day begins in the evening. Something inherited from the Jewish tradition and the Old Testament where in Genesis the day begins in the evening. In Liturgical Christian churches, Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic church, Lutheran church... liturgical day begins in the evening and the evening service is the first service in the daily circle of services and prayers.
Our julbord (Christmas buffé) has expanded a lot during the last 120 years. Some dishes we think of as traditional are actually from the 60s. But there is a clear order how to eat it as someone else explained here. I am sorry if no one told you the right way to attack a Swedish smörgåsbord.
One thing I thought about a couple of years ago, it might be similar in the UK, and of course it's not the same in every family. But we have an almost complete lack of Christ during "christ"mas. When I thought of the different things we did or have in our house, the only thing I could think of that really had something to do with Jesus was the star on top of the christmas tree. Everything else was either random weird stuff or remnants from the old pagan rituals. And of course, some of the random weird stuff could perhaps have something to do with him, but I couldn't see it at least.
That’s a good point Jonas and I’d say it’s probably true for the UK too actually. As you say, it seems like things are becoming less and less focussed around the religious element of Christmas these days!
@@JustaBritAbroad I wouldn't be surprised if we had a head start in that. It was a very long time since Sweden where a religious country, and even back then we still had a lot of the old pagan stuff/traditions left in the yule celebrations. The name for instance. :)
As a Christian swede I totally agree. I don't even consider julafton as a "Christian tradition" any more, but juldagen (25th)is a much more quiet day when I can do something more serious if I want to. I don't mind this at all, it's just a fun day with family and traditions.
Hej Gregg, as Marianne says in the comments, we celebrate the eve, because the day was thought to start at nightfall. Compare with Judaism, where Sabbath starts at nightfall on Fridays.
Annandagen is just a prolongation of the Christmas, even though it is a holiday in itself for St. Stephanos, sankt Staffan.
Yes, in "church calendar" Sunday starts at Saturday 18.00 (sort of official nightfall) so Christmas starts Christmas evening.
I would love an English Christmas for Christmas day, as well, plus julafton. I’m Swedish but having lived in the uk for 4 years. I think there’s 2 things sweden does better for Christmas. Firstly, it’s like a custom to be more friendly over Christmas. People are walking around being extra kind. I think that’s very nice. I didn’t see any of that in the uk. Secondly, Swedish Christmas has more natural materials like real oranges, cloves, homemade gingerbread and saffron buns , candles, maybe a fireplace, mulled wine and a real fir tree that gives off lovely scents. I think the uk had more of blinking lights and store bought sweets. More shopping, more chocolate. But I guess it must be personal too, the way we choose our foods etc. Anyway, British Christmas dinner sounds alot nicer. Especially as I don’t eat meat :)
I have loads of food allergies. None of them is against meat. Slightly simplified: i can't eat grain or seads (bread, peas, beans, pasta, rice..) or anything containing starch (basically the same thing but includes potatoes). I won't die if i do for a few days but i would become dehydrated and lose weight by eating.
I always eat the same food (meat, egg and fish) but on December 24 i actually eat luxuries like potatoes and bread since i take my yearly vacation to give me time to recover after the indulgence. Yes, I'm oversensitive to white suger but Julmust is the most Christmasy thing I know.
Today (the day after eating potatoes) i drink water and eat meat while refusing to be more than 5 seconds from a lavatory.
This post isn't intended to be hostile but Julmust is the thing i long for (a year to the next time/glas 😢).
I lived in Germany and I will tell you their Christmas was so wonderful nothing like the states .I really miss Germany .the food is awesome the markets outside our beautiful it's so so wonderful and it's probably just as great as germany.liked putting the shoes outside the door and giving the kids sticks for being bad it was wonderful.
Potato gratin with Fish = Jansson's tempation... otherwise is just gratin
Big difference these days because some people in my family are vegetarians.
Love that me and hubs don't have to choose which Christmas to celebrate, we do both. Mine on the 24th and his on the 25th as it is normally done :)
The gift giving. Santa comes with a sack filled with presents and hands them out, they're not sitting under the tree. The dad often say "oh drat, I forgot to get the evening paper", dashes out and sadly miss Santa's visit every year
Board Game is definently a thing at Xmas here in Sweden. At least in my family 🤗
My partner's family celebrates Christmas eve starting with what they call "Christmas Breakfast", which is really a brunch. It starts with rice porrage and ham sandwiches. And then you go from there. You basically graze all day with proper fika and then julbord in between.
Playing board games on Christmas Eve (after Christmas dinner) is very much a tradition in my family! On the 25th it's common to go out with your friends or going to the movies. Merry Christmas!
Games: We often have a game night on the 24th.. it has depended a bit on the age of the participants, but it is pretty common in many families.
Regarding board games in general: I think you will find a growing popularity for gaming (in all forms, but talking board games now) in the UK as well, so although we may be slightly ahead of the curve (maybe) it's still more of a general trend I think.
Just remember that Christmas traditions are different from family to family as well as its region ofbthe country. Specially the food. What we serv is so different from family to family. I allsaw know a few British people and none of them play boardgames but me as a swede do
it sometimes.
Sweden do the evenings because they used to be sunworshippers and if you do your cellebration or sacrifice during the evening/night then you pray for the suns return in the morning.
I bibeln, i första Moseboken, räknas dagarna från afton till afton. En dag börjar inte på morron utan på afton, 18:00 till 18:00. Tror ni också har, haft den traditionen i GB. Helgdagen, sabbaten, börjar lördag kl 18:00 med helgmålsringning och du kan åter gå i arbete efter 18:00 på söndagkväll. Så sent som på 70 talet jobbade min pappa på julafton.
Christmas day is a relaxing day for me, a day were you just are. Usually my family gather on Christmas Eve, then have a sleep over. Waking up all together to a big breakfast. During the day we would play boardgames, explore Christmas presents and....clean up after Christmas Eve. If the weather allows it the whole family would go out and play in the snow. The one day during the year the adults (in my family) would allow themselves to be "kids" again. Snowball "figths" a usual ending of our Christmas Day xD
Greetings from Finland!
Well first of all to realy understand the big picture for Nordic Christmas celebration aka Jul. Jul is originaly came from viking culture. Vikings celebrated at the darkest time of the year feasting three days a row. It incluted heavy drinking, eating and story telling. After jul changed year and days started to get little bit more of light.
Vikings eated many things but the pork meat and mead were the most important things in those feasts.
So that is the reason why we call it Jul (or Joulu here in Finland) and not Christmas. Christians had them own feast that was originaly totaly different time as they were celebrating birth of Jesus, but one of the popes onted to combine these feasts becouse he wanted Nordic pagans to take Christianity for religion and that time the first viking king (i don´t remember his name right now) had become chrtistian and Vatican tought that combinating these feasts to same time would help to spread christianity in to Nordic countries so they moved birthday of Jesus to be at Jul.
So there comes few things to Nordic jul. The food is variable becouse we have three day feast basicly in the backround. So there needs to be much of everything to eat during that time. Also heavy drinking has been one of the reasons too. If you are drinking heavy for three days you realy need to eat well. So basicly first day and evening there must be lots of food that is easy to eat scrabs next two days after. We still make huge amounts of food and eat it at least two or three days even in these days.
And for me and many others we still are waiting Jul and over eating ham (ham is important becouse pork was the main dish) and fishes (vikings eated sun-dryed salmon) also many types of game/quarry (not so common anymore, but in nothern pats of the country you might find reindeer or moose from the menu).
The traditional swedish christmas food is heavily meat based - the reason for this is that back in historic times christmas was the time for when the farmers brought out the best of the meat products that had been slaughtered during the fall. Basically on christmas we bring out all the stuff that the farmer produced by the end of the year.
good point about the historic connection!
The day started at the evening a long time ago. That is the reason we celebrate on afton.
Jul is closer to a pagan word
Greetings from Stockholm ☃️❄️☃️❄️☃️ huge -10C love Christmas I’m Sweden 🥰🥰🎄🎁🎄
A lot of the Swedish Julbord dishes comes from the Smörgåsbord and the older brännvinsbord.
Yet another great video =) Maybe for a future video compare how Swedes celebrate New Years Eve compared to the Brits? Or maybe it's kind of the same for all of us :P
Thanks André! Fun to hear that you enjoyed it! Haha that would be an interesting topic. I would assume we celebrate fairly similarly on New Year’s Eve to be honest but now you’ve got me intrigued, perhaps I’m totally wrong in my assumption. How do you spend New Years?
@@JustaBritAbroad Before the pandemic we would gather the whole lot of our friends together and all of us would chip in on the food. People would dress a bit fancy and we would all sit down to a nice dinner together with drinks. And after that there would be more drinks with games and people would be in a nice state of mind once the bell of the midnight tolled. That's when we would just go outside and enjoy the fireworks and for those whom brought fireworks along would set them to use.
This New Years Eve I've planned to have a dinner with only a few friends due to the restrictions of the pandemic. But I guess it'll be the same only with fewer people
@@JustaBritAbroad How do you plan on spending the New Years Eve ?
Den nordiska seden att fira julen främst den 24 december har sina rötter i tiden före det mekaniska uret. En ny dag började då vid solnedgången - i stället för som i dag vid midnatt.
jaha? men kul! tack för att du informerade mig!
A real julbord have 12 plates: different fish dishes with bread, butter and cheese, eggs and sea food, cold meat and sallad, varm dishes (meatballs, prinskorv, ribs), lutfisk, desserts, baked goodies with coffee and avec, sweets... don't forget beer and snaps with the food!
A restaurant julbord that is. Not how most people do at home in julafton and not how it's done historically.
Is it worth going to Stockholm. I’m from England currently living in California. But I find scandavian men attractive
Strictly speaking, neither Christmas Eve nor New Years Eve are ‘red days’ in Sweden. Nevertheless, most people in ‘office’ type or (light) industry type work get these days off through agreements between the employees and employer’s respective organizations, or just local agreements at the respective workplace.
Compensation with additional days off when the ‘red days’ are on the normal weekend I personally feel is somewhat silly. I lived in Canada in the 1980’s and at least then state run ‘stuff’ like the post office had that system but not private business!!
Christmas eve and new years eve usually counts as saturdays, not red days, meaning most people get them off.
Loved this video, thanks. :) We moved here a couple of years ago, and this will be our second Swedish Jul. To be fair, I found much that was familiar to my Scottish Highland Yuletides, even the gift giving the evening before the day. And the board games, yup. Can anyone from Sweden please explain Donald Duck though?
The every-different-kind-of-food thing is something I've always experienced at Christmas (and sometimes even Thanksgiving) in the US. I wonder if it's primarily informed by Scandinavian tradition. Half of my family are Swedish, but why we do it has never come up. I just thought it was normal.
There is a clear red line in a traditional swedish Julbord. Learn it, it's quite easy.
okay, please share? :)
@@JustaBritAbroad read post of f99mlu. A clear direction in how dishes are served and supposed to be eaten. All representing the tradition of food from a time when Sweden still was a poor agricultural country.
0:33
The UK "North European"?
Scotland maybe.
But the rest of the british islands?
Not really...
Though in sweden if for example the 24/12 is at a tuesday then the monday the day before (day betwen two red days) is calle a "Klämdag" = Squeeze-day ...i guess is the closest translation and a lot of employers and Unions have diffrent rules for them depending on what kind of work you do but a Rule of thumb is to expect diffrent Open-hours for stores and other service-based jobbs on these "Squeeze-days" if the store is open at all.
The main difference is that we do not celebrate Christmas, we celebrate _Yule_ .
Chrismas = Christ Mass = Kristus-mäss... a Christian holiday. But Yule is not Christian in origin. That is why you see so little of nativity displays and similar.
Lol "there is no red thread to the food??!!1!!1?"
Me: " dude, it's a smörgåsbord with the theme "christmas food", that's the theme... Christmas food..." 😂😂
I would think the biggest difference is that Swedes don't celebrate Christmas but Jul (Yule in English.) I know, I know, it's mostly the same holiday anyway but I feel that by keeping the pagan name it makes it more inclusive. Here in the US the political/religious monopoly on the holiday can be quite nasty, and many non-Christians seem pathetically lost. In Sweden it's not a Christmas tree, it's a Julgran, instead of Christmas gifts, music, greetings...well, you get it, replace with Jul and it can be enjoyed by all, Christians and non-believers, however they chose. God Jul! ❤
It's in fact a lot more like blot then a Christian celebration. The fact that we call it jul (yule) and not Christmas speaks for itself. We also call it "dopparedan" where it used to be a tradition to cook pigs fat and dip bread in it. Some people still does it to this day. The pig on the table use to represent the asa gods dinner where they slaughtered a pig, feasted on it and then it reincarnated just to get slaughtered and eaten again. In northest parts of Sweden they do have reindeer meat on the table mixed with blood sausage and reindeers tounge. (poor Rudolf 😆) The celebration of the twenty fourth is mostly because swedes simply refused to give up their beloved Jul where they gathered with loved ones and their servants to celebrate with the famous dopparedan. The church took the opportunity to mix the days together as to make it more of a Christian tradition instead of the heathen tradition they all loved so much. Some sort of meeting each other half the way. The swedes was allowed to celebrate their beloved dopparedan but in the name of christ. As what goes for the Christmas tree there is a lot of different suggestions. It came from Germany from the beginning, but the discussions goes apart as some believe it to actually represent Yggdrasil with the spear on the top. They later made a star the top ornament as to represent the star of Betlehem. I can't really say more about the Christmas tree but all I can say is that much of the Swedish celebrations do not have a lot of do with the actual Christianity. Nore does Lucia.
You are "supposed" to follow an order: fish; cold meats; warm meats; lutfisk; rice pudding.
Board games are not specific to Christmas, but it's very common to play on Christmas Day or Boxing Day.
Hi Greg. We love your videos but I want to say I really disagree with you mentioning that us Brits don't have lots of traditions in the run up to Xmas. I want to share some of the (maybe more modern) traditions me and my mum friends always do.
1. Xmas movies most nights of December. Especially for me Xmas eve would be watching The Snowman and then The snowman and the snowdog.
2. Making gingerbread houses with children. Same as here in Sweden, but all my friends are always doing the houses, and if they don't like gingerbread, get the Cadbury chocolate ones!
3. Wreath making whilst drinking a shit ton of mulled wine! (Adult party wreath making nights, getting to be huge where I am in Oxfordshire)
4. Driving around town or walking around at dusk/night and finding the houses with all the best Xmas decorations and lights and comparing and voting on your favourite. All my mummy friends do this with their children. Or nowadays we go to actual places which put on light displays.
5. Going to see Father Xmas and talking with him about what you want for Xmas.
6. Pantomime! Very huge in UK and the theatre is such an important part of our history meaning that even the fun, silly Pantomimes are still considered serious or respected acting.
7. Xmas fayres and Xmas markets. We love going to them!
8. Xmas crafts with kids. Salt dough decorations for grandma , bring it on! We are always crafting stuff!
9. Elf on the shelf. I don't have the creepy little dude, but everyone else seems to.
10. Reading 'Twas the night before xmas' every year... or maybe more modernly Dr Suess 'The Grinch that stole Christmas' - both are good 😅 really what I'm saying is Xmassy themed books.
11. Writing a letter to santa and posting it in the post box. Santa writes back ya know 😉
12. Making magic reindeer food out of oats and edible glitter and prancing around your garden throwing it around on Xmas eve.
13. Mince pie and a carrot for santa and his reindeer left out on Xmas eve and a drink santa might like. In my house santa likes wine 😉
14. Xmas stockings!
15. Eating a whole Xmas orange on Xmas morning for breakfast and feeling sick 🤣🤣🤣 (I try not to let my kids do this one.... seems to be a theme for many)
16. XMAS CRACKERS at the dinner table. Wear that crown or you're basically the Xmas Grinch! Swap the crown with your sibling for your favourite colour. Groan together at that awful joke together.
17. Cook the Xmas pudding that noone ever eats became they either don't like it, or have eaten too much turkey. It's still there if anyone does decide they want to eat it 🤣
Im sure there's more traditions that always seem to happen but I this is what I've come up on the top of my head!
We are in Sweden right now experiencing our first Xmas and tbh apart from the snow which is so so so beautiful and so scenic , its been very calm in the run up to Xmas so far. Leaving for UK tomorrow to get back for Xmas day!
On Christmas Eve the Santa is knocking on the door (under the mask it can be a helpful neighbour, grandpa, daddy, big brother) and when you open the door Santa is coming in. Some small children could be afraid (When I was 3 years old I ran into the bathroom and locked the door ... my daddy was Santa) and some children are not afraid. The Santa asks 'Are there any nice/good children here?' and of course the children shout 'YES!' And Santa gives a few gifts to each child (the rest is under the christmas tree) Santa 'must leave and visit other children'. Bye bye Santa! And now it's time to open the rest of the gifts. The most of people do this about 4 o' clock PM on Christmas Eve. Then the children start to play with the new things and the adult can drink their coffee with cookies and glögg. Merry Christmas!
On Christmas day you visit your extended family that you did not spend Christmas Eve with. Having Christmas dinner again and opening more Christmas gifts.
And about the Christmas gifts. Santa will visit the house during the nigh of the 23:e and leave a few gifts (one or two) under the Christmas tree for the children and then vist in person after Kalle Anka (which is at 15.00 or 3pm). And that is the "go" on opening the rest of the gifts under the tree from the family (you put the "rest" of the gift some time during the day). The hours between Kalle Anka and when Santa came was sooooo long as a kid.
During the evening of the 24th you eat again and talk and if someone got a board game as a gift you play.
The evening of the 25th you go to the movies!
This is my families tradition!
I didn't really check the comments to see if this was already explained.
Anyways we as Finns also celebrate in Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. The reasoning, as I have understood it, is in religion. Earlier it was more commonly thought that in holy days like sundays or Christmas, one is supposed to be quiet and consentrate to God and Bible. So the "roudy" celebrations happened in the Eve and the Christmas Day was about Christ. Nowadays many are not religious anymore but the tradition of celebrating in Eve is still there. Also in my family it still is habit to start Christmas Day with going to church.
Well we have the gift game but on Christmas eve :) or as we say Julklapps leken:) without Ham, Janssons, sill, spare ribs Julmust and Risalamalta and the Risalamalta i am talking about isnt with strawberry sauce or lemonade sause. When i make it its with Mandarins , whipped cream and lots of vanilla but warm strawberry sauce is good 2. and all home made candy:) And i live outside Gbt Gby
Apparently, at the viking age, the new day began at dusk, not midnight. So the 25th, began after sunset on the 24th, thus the Christmas evening turned into christmas day!
I think the reason for Swedes always celebrating the "eve" rather than the "day" is that the day usually is holy day during which a good Christian shouldn´t party but rather reflect on religion and pray. For example, Swedes formerly used to "celebrate in" Lucia Day, which isn´t regarded as a particularly holy day to the church, i.e youngsters were out heavily drinking the night before Lucia Day
Most Swedish red days aren't moveable, so the issue doesn't occur that often. It's only really Christmas and New Year.
Alot of commentators tells there are a red thread in the order what foods to eat in a swedish christmasbuffet. In my family we never had any order at all. We took what we liked and ate it, what we didn't like we didn't eat. Simple.
What meals that are in the buffet varies between diffrent families and diffrent parts of Sweden.
All this do most swedes eats during the afternoon and evening on christmas, within a few hours:
1. Christmasbuffet
2. Dessert
3. Fika
4. Sweets
Can you believe they changed the time for Donald duck this year from the sacred 15.00 to 15.05? The audacity!
Actually, back in the olden days salmon was considered the worst kind of fish as it was so abundant that in regions with rivers they coud eat salmon just about every day in the week. Also the julbord extravaganca harks back toi the viking age where they ,before christian times, would get together and celbrate and have a midvinterblot, essentially overdoing it in terms of food and beer if you could afford it. However many of the dishes you see today would not have been present 100 years ago.
Christmas day and boxing day evening could be celebrated on the movies here, not so much of that the last two years however, And homecoming parties during christmas day.
In olden days before people had clocks a new day began at sundown; that's why we celebrate 24th. It's not like they could tell when it was 12 o'clock at night. So for them it was the 25th.
By the time all of the presents have been opened it's generally high time to go to bed or head back home (depending on whether you're a host or a guest)
Do you celebrate the new year on New years eve, or New years day? :) Same with christmas, you celebrate on the eve, and less on the day :D
Christmas is the 24:th but You go to church early morning the 25:th.
food is good if you are low on carbon hydrates...
Thank you for showing us the differences between Christmas in UK and in Sweden. That was interesting. 😊
As many here in the comments have pointed out, there is a long tradition of eating julbord and it certainly has its rules or ways of eating. I can recommend the podcast “Alla kan äta julbord” with Lotta Lundgren and Erik Haag. Very interesting and educating about all the tours of the Julbord. (Swedish language though, you might need to have it translated or explained to you?) 🤗
In Sweden we still celebrate Jul and that is a way older thing than Jesus birth that came to us as an addon just 1000 years ago.
I would be surprised if not 100% of the Swedes watching kalle anka!!!! thats like something all kids gets from the mothers milk so to speak
Thanks for the reminder! I had forgot to have any Glögg this holiday. Lingonglögg of course 👍
When you work in retail and you have to work on all the days 🥲 And then you laugh at all the others who complain they’ll miss out when Christmas is on a weekend. Like okay Karen sit down you’ll at least be off work 🥲😂
Tfw you don't do any of the traditions described. Except watching Donald Duck, of course, I'm not a savage.
Hey!
The Swedish julbord is always sectioned in three parts and tradition plus local dishes dictates whats on it (but there are following a protocol so you cant just put anything on it) This is how we normally set it up and it has looked like this for at least 60+ years. You normally start with the cold table (gravad and smoked salmon, julskknka, eggs, herrings, different salads etc) warm table; poatoes, jansdons frestelse, lutfisk, meatballs, omelette, ribs). Finally different knäck, chocolate, ginger bread, glögg and Ris a la Malta. In the evening you serve additional sandwich with ham.
The day is also a) a long wait for either eat or watching traditional tv shows. Watch Svensson Svensson, and you know the tradition (2000 in the evening)
God Jul!
Many people work at those red days in Sweden, it is only kinda day workers that has holiday.
Kinda like office workers, small day working industry etc. But shift workers in the big industry have to work.
christmas is a Scandinavian holiday! it originates from odin and the christian church made it a holiday back in the 900's to assimilate scandinavians. the christmas trees and wreaths are a pagan tradition!
Its a difference between US and UK christmas traditions. UK are a older country then US
24th and 31st of december isnt a bank holliday in norway but most work half days because it the day before a bank hollyday
what we eat at christmas has changed a lot just in the bast 60 years. My mother tells me when she grew up christmas was the time you slaugtherd a pig and used all of the pig at christmas eve. most of the thing she ate then are not common today
Jul is a three day feast to celibrate the return of the sun. (Nothing to do whit christ or church) All the food where for different days.