Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘Christmas in Sweden’

Christmas in Sweden, 2021

I think nothing says ‘injecting some life into my blog’ like writing content that should have been published weeks ago. Why yes, January is the perfect time to write about Christmas. Today is a public holiday in Sweden, Epiphany – thirteen days after Christmas, so in fact, I can legally still write about the festive season, getting it in at the very last minute. To push my point further, the Swedes like to drag out Christmas so it doesn’t officially end here until Saint Knut’s Day – twenty days after Christmas – so maybe I am actually ahead.

Delightful (and dark) December

When December 1 appeared, we were Advent-ready. As a Christmas extremer, I am a fan of this lovely tradition that dates back to the 1890s. On top of our usual adventures with advent – Grandma’s beautiful advent calendar + public television’s daily Christmas tv show and radio saga, with matching calendar – this year, we took it up a notch.

Marigold and Elsa made their own calendars at school, turns out they were my favourites, of course. To hear the matching stories associated with each window was pure joy. Grandma also sent us a ‘kindness’ advent calendar with a kindness challenge for every day. Fabulous!

Christmas near the north pole – Santa included!

As the pandemic raged on, we were very grateful to be able to spend Christmas together with our Swedish family. For so many both in Sweden and around the world, this type of family gathering was not possible; we were truly thankful.

On Christmas Eve, the Swedish Christmas Goat made his majestic appearance like clockwork and Christmas celebrations officially started. Santa must have been triple vaccinated, because he showed up on a sleigh!!! A day of eating, gifting, chatting, napping, and taking walks with the puppy. Yes, that’s right. A puppy!

A puppy for Christmas

The Ling puppy lobby won their petition for an earlier-than-expected surprise purchase of a puppy, with a strong four votes out of five. By mid-December, we were able to pick her up, an 11-week-old ‘Pomapoo’ – a mix of Toy Poodle and Pomeranian. Her real mix is part dog, part teddy bear, so it was love at first sight; introducing Yumi Rose, the best Christmas present ever! Having her with us up north was golden magic. She even loves snow.

The joy of writing

I have now set a target to write one blog post per week and with this post, I am 100% on track. You’ll have to put up with me a bit longer.

More to come.

Can you ever take too many pictures of a puppy? How was your Christmas? Could you spend time with family or did corona bite you in the bum? Let me know below.

Cheers to the year that was … part 2

I felt like I was in the Barossa Valley, whipping up quince jelly, quince paste and rosemary and quince jam. Turns out, all you have to do is add a hell of a lot of sugar to them and boil the crap out of them.

Read more

Adventures with Advent

By December, Sweden has very few hours of daylight so some clever bugger came up with the idea of celebrating the four Sundays before Christmas, by lighting candles and drinking mulled wine. Golf clap.

Read more

Waddling in a winter wonderland

And I'm hoping to be waddling in a winter wonderland as Sweden at the moment is, well rather warm. There is not much snow around so most of the country is looking not at a white Christmas, but at a grey one. Luckily on Saturday we are flying north to Norrland, to celebrate Christmas with our family in the only part of Sweden to be pretty well assured of a flurry of snow.

Read more

Fika fun!

And I must say, our strategy of me staying out of the kitchen and letting TSH do all the cooking, proved to be our biggest success. Our menu plan of traditional Swedish with a modern flare seemed to be well appreciated and everything did taste so darn good.

Read more

Jul Fika

Although at this stage, the raspberry caramels (which look absolutely gorgeous in the recipe picture!) may just turn out to be caramels as we have been to 6 different shops and cannot seem to find the all import dried raspberries. As it is now Friday, I'm either going to spend tonight picking out dried raspberries from our breakfast muesli or we will have to have raspberry caramels sans raspberries!

Read more

A very Swedish Christmas – part 3

Glazed ham, sausages, meatballs, red cabbage, herring, herring and herring are all washed down with a gift from St Schnapps – patron saint of the drunken bastard.

Read more

Extreme Christmas

So just why do I love Xmas so much? Of course there is the spirit of giving, spending time with family and friends, enjoying long held traditions and that bit about Jesus being born, but I much prefer the spending of money and the eating of sugar

Read more

A very Swedish Christmas – part 1

Glögg, St Nick be praised, is mulled red wine served warmed with raisins and almonds. It can be enjoyed any time you don’t have plans to drive.

Read more