Julafton

Swedish Christmas Eve

Anna's family is Swedish American - both of her parents were born and raised in Sweden, and all of their relatives are still there. Her parents met here in the United States about 45 years ago and raised their family here. You can imagine the amount of influence and pride there is for everything to do with Sweden and Swedish traditions in our family.

Julafton (Christmas Eve) is the biggest.

If you read my blog, you will know that my family is Polish and I wrote about our Polish Christmas traditions last year. Anna and I have alternated celebrating Christmas with our families year after year. This year it is our Swedish celebration.

Like my parents, Anna's parents have celebrated the holiday the exact same way every single year of their lives, and so did their grandparents, and their great-grandparents, etc. We are passing these traditions on to Anders and Jakob and I am so happy that both of our families are so rich with ethnic customs.

Christmas actually begins on December 13 in Sweden, with Santa Lucia. Usually, the eldest girl in the family portrays St. Lucia, puts on a white robe in the morning and is allowed to wear a crown full of candles. She serves her parents Lucia buns and coffee. We haven't yet made this a big part of our celebration (we have 2 boys!) but we have attended some Santa Lucia parties in Vermont.

Also, it's typical to decorate the trees and homes in seasonal Swedish spirit with gingerbread cookies (otherwise known as pepparkakor), straw Christmas decorations, and flowers such as the Julstjärna (Poinsettia), red tulips, and red or white Amaryllis. Our tree and house have many Swedish ornaments sent to us from family in Sweden - but we've made it our own style by adding birds nests, birds, and little Polish ornaments as well. This year we also hung pepparkakor heart cookies at every window. Decorating is nearly as fun as the entire celebration for me!

The traditional Swedish Christmas Eve dinner is a smörgåsbord, and includes a variety of foods. Preparation takes all day, includes nearly everyone, and begins with Anna's father carefully removing all the bones from a tin of Swedish anchovies for a particular recipe. The dinner always includes Julskinka (Christmas ham,) köttbullar(Swedish meatballs,) inlagd sill(pickled herring,) strömming (more herring,) Jansson's Tempation (shredded and baked potatoes with anchovies and heavy cream,) rödkalssallad (red cabbage salad,) potatis (boiled, dilled potatoes,) Rökt korv (smoked sausage,) prinskorv (fried sausage,) knäckebröd, a variety of cheeses - gouda, edam, jarlsburg, Vört Limpa (a rye based bread,) and sweets - finska pinnar, pepparkakor, havrekakor, kingla, and saffron bullar. Oh, and during the first course, which is the breads, crackers, cheeses and pickled fish, there is a toast with Aquavit and traditional Swedish drinking songs are sung. (I'll try to post a video of this!)

After dinner, a visit from the jultomten is expected - the Christmas gnome who comes bearing gifts with the Christmas goat. We exchange most presents this night (except a few from Santa in the morning) This is our way of merging the traditions in both of our families which celebrate on the eve of Christmas, so that the boys can still feel excited about a visit from Santa Claus.



For fun here are some Swedish words you just might like to know:
In Swedish you pronounce the J as a Y. Such as...GodYul...Yulafton, etc.
god jul - Merry Christmas!
julafton – Christmas eve, Dec 24.
julbock – traditional Christmas goat (made out of straw)
julbord – Christmas buffet
juldag – Christmas day
julgran – Christmas tree
julgransbelysning – Christmas tree lights
julklapp – Christmas present
julkort – Christmas card
jullov – Christmas (school) break
jultomte – Santa Claus
jultid – Christmas time

God Jul!