A few days before Christmas Eve, Swedes venture forth to look for the perfect Christmas tree. This is a serious matter - the tree is the very symbol of Christmas and it must be densely and evenly branched, and straight.
If you’re a townie, you’ll buy the tree in the street or square. Country-dwellers will harvest their own. Many Swedes believe - mistakenly - that their legal right of access to the countryside allows them to fetch a tree from the woods wherever they like, with an axe, a bucksaw or - as in western Värmland on the Norwegian border - with a shotgun. Not to be recommended.
Trees are decorated according to family tradition. Some are bedecked with flags, others with tinsel and many with coloured baubles. Electric lights are usually preferred to candles on the tree because of the fire risk.
Homes are also decorated with wall hangings depicting fairies and winter scenes, with tablecloths in Christmas patterns, and with candlesticks, little Father Christmas figures and angels. The home is filled with the powerful scent of hyacinths.
On Christmas Eve, at three o’clock, the whole of Sweden turns on the TV to watch a cavalcade of Disney film scenes that have been shown ever since the 1960s without anyone tiring of them. Only then can the celebrations begin in earnest.
Food and presents
Christmas is the main family event of the year in Sweden, and there is always a certain amount of discussion about whose turn it is to host it this time round. Those wishing to be reunited with their families often have to travel far. Train and air tickets must be booked at least two months in advance, and motorists are advised to start their journeys in good time.
Christmas in Sweden is a blend of domestic and foreign customs that have been re-interpreted, refined and commercialised on their way from agrarian society to the modern age. Today, most Swedes celebrate Christmas in roughly the same way. Whilst many of the local customs and specialities have disappeared, each family claims to celebrate it in truly distinctive style.
The food you eat at Christmas may still depend on where you live in the country, or where you came from originally but here, too, homogenisation has set in, due in no small part to the uniform offerings of the department stores and the ready availability of convenience foods. Nowadays, few have time to salt their own hams or stuff their own pork sausages.
Christmas presents are under the lighted tree, candles shine brightly and the smorgasbord has been prepared with all the classic dishes: Christmas ham - boiled, then painted and glazed with a mixture of egg, breadcrumbs and mustard - pork sausage, an egg and anchovy mixture (gubbröra), herring salad, pickled herring, home-made liver pâté, wort-flavoured rye bread (vörtbröd), potatoes and a special fish dish, lutfisk - a dried ling or sathe soaked in water and lye to swell before it is cooked.
Once all have eaten their fill, Santa Claus himself arrives to wish the gathering a Merry Christmas and distribute the presents.
Holiday leave over Christmas and the New Year is fairly long, usually extending a week into January. Once Christmas Eve is over, a series of enjoyable - or, in some cases, dutiful - visits to friends and relatives ensues.
High expectations
Swedes expect a great deal from their Christmas. Whilst there must be snow on the ground, there must also be blue sky and sunshine. Everyone is expected to be in good health, the ham must be succulent and tasty and presents must be numerous. Moreover, the children are expected to be happy and well behaved and the home is expected to be warm and bright.
Everyone does their best, and the Swedes perhaps are better placed than most to celebrate Christmas. The ever-present candles and lights provide a nice contrast to the winter dark, the red wooden cottages are at their most attractive when embedded in snow, and the fir trees stand dark and sedate at the edge of the forest. Santa Claus moves about the land and the North Star pulsates up there in the night sky. A winter Idyll, if ever there was one.
Title Image Credit: Lau Svensson (Image Cropped)