viajes-turismo,recetas sin tacc,noticias en Argentina.CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS IN THE WORD : TODAY SWEDE
Christmas Traditions in Sweden
Today I will share the Swedish Traditions.This wonderful country has a rich history their celebrations are a mix between Cristian and Pagans traditions, that makes their identity unique.
My good friend Tomas has share their Swedish Christmas here with us.Enjoy them!!!
....... will soon book a dinner reservation for the family which is a tradition to eat in December. Its called Julbord which translates to Christmas table. You eat traditional christmas related food which is roasted ham, meatballs, smoked salmon, eggs, sill/herring (we always eat sill ha ha), different potato dishes, mushroom pie and things like that. They dine a big common table for all guests an people get themselves what they want like a buffe.
Basically Swedes eat this kind of traditional food three times per year in the samer matter each time. Around christmas in december, around easter in april and Midsummer in june. Midsummer has focus on sill, Easter focus on eggs and Christmas focus on ham
Why do we say God Jul? I think its a mix of pagan tradition (under the Norse gods like Thor, Odin, Loki, Freya, the midwinter sacrifice and the winter solstice, when the sun is at its lowest point of the whole year, both were celebrated) and the christian tradition with the birth of Jesus. Our Jul starts at 24 of December, a day when family meet, eat and give each other presents until the 13th of January when the Christmas is "danced out" by singing and dancing around the Christmas tree even if it gets more and more rare to do any dances, its more for younger kids. The religious factor is low, even if its possible to go to church during Christmas but the focus is on meeting family and relaxing from work.
In december we have a strong Saint Lucia celebration tradition here, but it is a mixed tradition, it is not a typical Saint tradition celebration. Here Saint Lucia is a person that acts her, a young woman that wears white robe, red belt (symbol of the martyr in Saint Lucia) and lit candles in her hair (to symbol when Lucia carried food to the prisoners in the dark cells, she had to put the light in her hair to get her hands free for carrying the food). She needs to sing typical Lucia songs and she is accompanied by more girls that sing with her called (tärnor). Typically Lucia walks in the evening with her tärnor to churches or to home of elders singing and spreading her light. The Swedish pagan tradition is at work as well because accordingly, on the 13th of December you should not stay outside because evil doings are in the air, ready to strike at anyone that does not behave. Therefore you should stay awake long and stay indoors to wait for the evil to move away
Christmas celebration starts actually on first Sunday in December but , there are only a handful of days that we actually do the celebration. On Sundays in December we light a new candle for each Sunday to "count down". Lucia celebration on the 13th December we usually go to a church as listen to singing. A few days before Christmas we buy a Christmas tree and decorate it with candles. 24th Christmas eve, the highlight of Christmas. After this, everything is down to slow motion and peacefulness. People try to do as little as possible until they have to go back to work. Except for new years celebration of course.
Glögg. Its a kind a sweet tasting warm heated wine that is dark red to the color. This we drink last Sunday on 1st Advent. We also typically eat gingerbread cookies to this.
First advent we light the first candle of four in our Advent candlestick that you see in this picture. The gingerbread are on the top. We also often eat some chocolates Christmas gifts that we receive from work or friends that you also see in the picture
