Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic How do you celebrate Christmas?

Please! I need your help. I've decided that I'm going to let two different classes work with the question of how Christmas is celebrated in other countries. But it's not so easy to find very much information on the Internet, and often that information is kind of stilted and formal.

So, please, can you tell me how you celebrate Christmas in your country? Just to make you see that your Christmas celebration is special and not like it is in other countries, I'm going to tell you a little about Christmas in Sweden.

Yesterday (or for many of you, today) Christmas sort of started here in Sweden with the Window Display Sunday. Actually, that is an event that has become less important and festive over the years, but it used to be something that made families crowd into downtown centers to gape at the splendidly decorated display windows.

Things really start on December 1. All Swedish kids need to have an advent calendar:



These advent calendars have twenty-four little "doors", one for each day up until Christmas Eve. You open one for each day. Nowadays, some kids expect advent calendars that come with a present every day!

There is also a daily kiddie TV program, the Christmas Calendar, that many adults also watch.

On December 1, almost everybody puts one of these on their window sills. Many families have one such "multiple electric candlestick" in each of their windows.





When you pass a house in December, you may see one of these electric candlesticks in every window. (Okay, it's a bad picture and those lights may actually be something else enteirely, but really, it's true what I said about the candlesticks in the windows!)

The candles we put in our windows are electric, but there is also this kind of candlestick where the candles are really supposed to burn down. You light a new candle every Sunday, starting on the Sunday four weeks before Christmas Day.



The next big thing is Lucia on December 13. Lucia is actually a Catholic saint, who is celebrated in Sweden by secularized Swedes who have no idea who she was! Actually, the reason why we celebrate her has to do with the fact that December 13 was considered to be the darkest night of the year in the old peasant society of Sweden. Various more or less heathen celebrations took place that night. The Catholic church, which was banished from Sweden in the 16th century, had made each day of the year a day to remember a particular saint, and the saint whose day was December 13 was Lucia. When all other saints were forgotten in Sweden, Lucia was remembered, because she was the one who brought light on the darkest of all nights.

Early in the morning on December 13, girls dress up as Lucia and her "attendants". All schools and workplaces have their own Lucia celebration, where Lucia and her attendants walk slowly into a darkened room, bringing light and candles and singing traditional Lucia songs. If you are one of the lucky ones (or unlucky ones, depending on how you look at it) who have a Lucia visiting your own home very early in the morning, then Lucia is supposed to bring you coffee and cakes, too.



(Oh, and by the way... some of these girls may be severely hung over after a night of wild Lucia partying...)

For Christmas, we eat a lot of pork. In the old peasant society, Christmas was the time when people slaughtered their fattest pig.



The main course, the Christmas ham.



Other Christmas food.

We eat Christmas ginger bread...



...and deliciously yellow saffron bread.



Of ocurse we have Christmas trees, too, but I'm not posting a picture of a tree. Doesn't everybody have them?

Christmas Eve is the biggest day of celebration in Sweden. No other day of the year comes close to it. At three o'clock, most families watch a Disney Christmas show, which is the same each year.

And by the way, Christmas Eve is the big, big family day in Sweden. If I've understood it correctly, Thanksgiving is the day that Americans are supposed to spend with their families. Well, for Swedes that day is Christmas Eve.

Later in the afternoon or in the early evening, every child expects Santa Claus to come to his or her house, bringing presents. (Actually, the presents will already be in the house, maybe under the Christmas tree - except there will not be room for all of them - and maybe in big sacks. You simply ask the visiting Santa to hand out the presents, not exactly to bring them. By the way, all Christmas gifts are handed out on Christmas Eve, and nothing is left for Christmas Day.)



This Santa may be on his way to some kids! (But he should really put a mask on first!)

The next day is Christmas Day, and some people go to a very early Christmas service, called "julotta", at seven in the morning. Most people sleep late that day, though.

In the past, people used to go the "julotta" in horse-drawn sleds with jingle bells.

Christmas Day is also a day for visiting family and celebrating together. But some people also go to town to check out the big sales that often start on Christmas Day in Sweden these days! Well, Christmas Eve is over, so why not start the leftover Christmas sales right away?

Well, that is something about Christmas in Sweden. Please don't think I'm asking any of you to write a lot about your Christmas! Anything you can tell me will be most appreciated!

Ann