how different countries, people, religions etc celebrate christmas.
I'll start with a somewhat typical swedish christmas.
First of all we celebrate december 24th, not 25th.
I spend the holiday at my parents house with mom, dad, sister, brother and grandma.
During the day we make fudge, watch tv and basically just hang out.
At 3 o'clock its Donald Duck on TV.
Donald Duck on TV in christmas might not seem like a big deal, but in Sweden it sort of is.
It's become a tradition to watch this program "Donald Duck and his friends" on Christmas eve
which consists of several short disney-cartoons.
The ratings is usually around 4.000.000, which is nearly half of our total population.
After that it's time for christmas-lunch.
The most important thing is the christmas-ham. Yep, no turkey here.
Some other things we have on the menu:
Suneye = pickled herring, parsley, egg, beets
Veal brawn or jellied veal
Pickled herring
Meatballs
Cocktail wieners
Spare ribs
Janssons Temptation = Potatoes, onions and anchovies
Cured salmon
Liver-paté
Rice-porridge with cinnamon
And more...
We drink christmas-beer (dark beer), scnapps and julmust.
The schnapps is aquavit (40%) flavoured with aniseed and fennel.
Before you drink the schnapps everyone sings drinking songs.
Julmust looks like Cola, but it tastes very different.
I can't really explain it to you, but it's very popular. It's so popular that
Coke-sales go down 60% in Sweden each year at christmas.
Then we open our christmas presents.
When all that is done, we sit by the fire and eat fudge, watch TV, play boardgames and whatnot.
So that's my christmas for ya.
