Christmas and the New Year

For a little kiwi girl who is used to spending Christmas in the sunshine, having a white Christmas was quite something! And although I have spent my whole life having Christmas in the sun wishing I could have a white Christmas, a proper Christmas, it felt very strange to be tucked up in a warm house with snow falling outside.

Sweden has so many great traditions over Christmas. They celebrate the advent leading up to Christmas. Advent starts on the first of December and goes on till the 24^th of December, when Christmas is celebrated in Sweden. Candles were lit every Sunday for the four Sundays leading up to the 24^th. Each candle was numbered from 1 to 4 and lit in the order from 1 to 4.

In Sweden there are two types of drink that are only drunk over the Christmas period. One is a Swedish fizzy drink called Julmust. This is black like coca cola but tastes very different. It takes a few tries to get used to but all in all in quite a tasty drink. But one thing I can’t describe is the taste of Julmust. It is like trying to describe L&P! Almost impossible! The second drink is called Glögg. It is a typically a Scandinavian drink that is drunk over Christmas and New Year’s. Glögg in mulled wine although there is many alcohol free versions of it as well. It is drunk warm and in small amounts. You also put raisins, cranberries and/or macadamia nuts. It is also a very sweet drink but all in all very tasty!!

My host family held a Glögg party on the 1^st of December, which is a thing common to do to drink Glögg and celebrate the first advent. It was a fun party and when I first tried Glögg. At the party there were lots of other things that are special to Christmas. These things include pepperkaker (Swedish gingerbread), blue cheese to eat with the pepperkaker, ischoklad (chocolates in little cases), knäck (a Christmas toffee) and lussekatter (saffron buns). All of these things were made by my host sister, Emma, and I the two nights before the party. We ended up doing over 24 hours of baking in those two days!

In Sweden Christmas dinner is called a Julbord. My family took me to have a traditional Julbord on a boat. The amount of food that a traditional Julbord has in amazing! The tradition is that you go back for more food 7 times or more! There are so many things I see how you could do that, but how you fit that all in is beyond me!! It starts off with cold fish dishes. I made it my goal to try as many dishes as I could! The fish was amazing. Some were not as nice as they tasted like cinnamon which wasn’t my cup of tea, but others were great! The second type of dishes was more fish! This was fish like salmon and prawns. These were all yum! And then we go to the third round of dishes. And we are back for more fish!! This time it is warm fish!! Sweden has a type of Christmas fish that taste of, well, nothing at all. It is a white fish that just melts away in your mouth but has no taste what so ever. It was a very strange thing to eat! We then move over to meats and salads and breads. There is a type of bread that tastes exactly like hot cross buns without the raisins in it! The meats were ham, little sausages and meatballs. There were others but I can’t remember what they were. But then it is dessert time! Ice cream with toffee on top, pepperkaker, fruit, knäck and ischoklad! Also by this time I was stuffed and couldn’t eat anymore! The Julbord was a whole evening activity! And all very tasty!

Stockholm has so many lovely and amazing Christmas markets dotted all around the city. The two main ones are at a place called Skansen, which is Stockholm’s zoo. The other is in Gamla Stan, also known as old town. Christmas markets sell Christmas decorations, Christmas food and sweets and gifts. They are so lovely and cute to walk around and bring a lovely feeling of Christmas spirit!

On the 24^th we celebrated Christmas. It was my host family as well as my host mums two sisters. We had a much smaller version of Julbord and I made pav for dessert! After dinner we open presents. It felt odd to be doing all the Christmas things on the 24^th but when I think about it, it was the 25^th in New Zealand at that time anyway!

During the build up to Christmas I felt quite homesick. This was the first time I have felt really homesick since I have been here. I think a Christmas away from is always going to be a strange thing. Feeling homesick is just part of having a different type of Christmas and didn’t make me enjoy Christmas with my host family and Sweden any less!

New Year was a smaller celebration in my family. We had some family friends over and had a lovely dinner and stay up until midnight talking. At about 5 to midnight we got our champagne and sat ourselves at the windows to watch the huge amount of fireworks that went off at midnight! It was a nice relaxed way to enter the New Year!

And now it is 2013. I have one of the busiest years of my life ahead of me and I cannot wait to get started! I have so many adventures and places to see and new people to meet! Starting with going skiing with my host family for a week!

Bring on 2013!!