God Jul!

December 24, 2011

A late start to our God Jul morning, we had breakfast at 11am. Then we made Janssons Frestelse which is a potato, onion, and anchovy dish that is simply scrumptious.

When Camilla and Moa came over, I taught Moa how to fold napkins in a fancy. Then I played scrabble, where I used only English words and Camilla, Cecilia, and Carl used only Swedish words. That was interesting ^^

After that we got ready for the Christmas meal and it was amazing. A lot of my favorite foods were present, deviled eggs, salmon with lingonberries, beets we also had pickled herring, bread, meatballs, different kinds of sausage- yes I tried the reindeer and moose sausage!! I prefer reindeer over moose sausage.

Then we watched at 3pm the Donald Duck Christmas Special which was many old time Disney cartoon clips. At this moment in time I thought how else could this day get any better, I mean in one day I get to have deviled eggs, salmon, and Disney cartoons – although most of the songs were in Swedish.

Once that was finished, we had Fika (coffee break with sweets)!!! With Saffron buns and cinnamon buns, coconut macaroons, biscotti, cookies, almond shells with cream and clementines. I was in food heaven!

Did I mention as Swedish Christmas is revolved mainly around food?

During our Fika, mysteriously Carl disappeared and Santa Claus was outside peering into the window!!!! Then the doorbell rang and as we answered it, Moa was frightened in Camilla’s arms. I have never really met a kid who was afraid of Santa Claus. Once Santa was sited with his bag of goodies ready to be distributed Santa asked for a glass of whiskey which Cecilia’s stepfather gladly got it for him. I never had seen Santa drinking whiskey before, so it was a bit of a bizarre scene for me. I guess it is quite common here in Sweden to give whisky to Santa.

Presents were distributed and Santa said goodbye shortly after the unwrapping gifts took place. It was a long process (as any Christmas), but really fun as everyone was just enjoying each other’s company.

Once all the gifts were open Moa played a bit with her new toys and we had rice porridge with either milk and cinnamon, or a sweet fruit sauce. Supposedly there was an almond in the porridge and if someone found it they would either get married the next year, be able to make a wish, or something of that nature. No one found the almond strange enough, but it was all good.

Cecilia, Carl, and I ended the night playing a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit. Somehow I managed to answer two questions out of the blue. Like “what was the Russian author of The House of the Dead?” (answer: Dostoevsky) and “What former soviet republic is the world’s largest landlocked country?” (answer: Kazakhstan).  

Yep it was an amazing day!!!

God Jul! 

* Note: Sorry for being bad about keeping you up with my adventures this past month, will update with them when I get a chance even though it is a bit late.