I just wanted to pop in and say Merry Christmas (=God Jul)! Swedes celebrate today, on Christmas Eve, and this is how we do it:
- We eat smorgasbord for Christmas dinner
- With the food we drink snaps (spiced alcohol taken like a shot) and we sing a little song to go with it, called snapsvisa. Click here for the most famous one Helan Går, performed by ABBA, our national treasure 🙂
- If you don’t want alcohol with your dinner, drink julmust. It’s a Swedish soda that makes The Coca Cola Company cry every December when Swedes stop drinking Coke and switch to julmust instead 🙂
- We watch Donald Duck at 3PM on Christmas Eve. Non-negotiable. (Note: this article is a few years old and the racist element mentioned is since removed. Fortunately.)
- We drink glögg, which is a kind of mulled wine
- And we give each other presents, of course
This is my Christmas tree from last year, when we celebrated in Malaysia. We did our best to recreate a true Swedish Christmas, we had even downloaded Donald Duck and pressed play on the computer at 3PM sharp 😀 But this year traditions are back to normal and we’re spending Christmas in Sweden.
Have a great Christmas everyone!
Nell Iris 