Jul, 2011

This is our third Christmas we celebrated in Sweden. We started our Christmas on the 10th of December with a traditional Christmas-treat baking day at Örjans' farm (Ronnie's boss), near Knutby, 40 km from Uppsala. Baking with us were some of Ronnie's group members. We made the traditional ischocklad (chocolates), knäck (toffee), lussekatter (saffron buns) and pepparkakor (gingerbread). Baking these Christmas candies and cookies is a common custom that families embark on every December before Christmas.

Knutby farm

Preparing dough for the lussekatter

Knäck

Xidan making marzipan chocolates

For our own Christmas Eve dinner we kept to the traditional Swedish Christmas foods since it's available en masse in the shops while "boerewors en pap" are impossible to find. Below is a video of Ronnie placing the extremely traditional Christmas Ham on our julbord (Christmas-table). Other traditional Swedish Christmas foods that we enjoyed this year were: pickled fish (sill), beetroot salad, shrimp salad, potato gratin, liver pate, pinskorv (small sausages) and risgrynsgröt (rice pudding). The essential accompanying beverages are julmust (christmas cola) and glögg (warm mulled wine).



This is the fourth consecutive year we were at a different place during Christmas. Hopefully next Christmas we will be here again.

C&R