Scandinavian Christmas is a colorful mixture of old pagan rituals and imports from all over Europe and Christianity. Read on and get in the Scandinavian Christmas mood.
The past is very much present in all the yuletide traditions that flourish under a veneer of Christian lore. This hotchpotch nevertheless represents a real Scandinavian Christmas.
You don’t need to have lived in Norway very long to come across the word julebord. The julebord is as Norwegian as other holiday favorites such as gløgg, pinnekjøtt and long, dark nights.
The buzzword is the untranslatable hygge, meaning coziness, only much more. The important point of all the gatherings and traditions is that there is hygge, an amiable spirit of warmth, tradition, relaxation and well-being, all put together in a single word that every Scadinavian understands.
Naturally, everybody is aware that Christmas celebrate the birthday of Christ, and an extraordinary number of Scandinavians fill the churches during this time. However, in reality, the Christian aspect is just another tradition among others. The early Christians cleverly placed the birth of Christ on top of the ancient yuletide festivities, to make sure that the population would celebrate His birthday. Yule was originally a pagan festival celebrating the longest night of the year by lighting as many candles and oil lamps as you could afford, and eating, drinking and warding off the evil spirits by keeping watch during the night.
Yuletide was not for the faint-hearted, and this is why Christmas is still about for the majority of adult Scandinavians. Every workplace, institution, school, association and society – which Scandinavians are so fond of – has its own Christmas lunch; this often involved substantial orgies of food, but is more about drinking and having a good time. Special trains and buses carry the victims safely home, and for most people December is a month of extremely busy weekends.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas!
Scandinavian Christmas, written by Tor Kjolberg
Feature image (on top): Schevedrum.ai