Christmas in Finland

Hyvää joulua ja onnellista uutta vuotta kaikille!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you!

Before our Christmas break, we asked our Finnish readers what their Christmas traditions are and now we are going to present you some of their answers!

The first one to reply was one of our closest friends Reela. She moved to Finland five years ago from Abu Dhabi, where most of her family lives, which she unfortunately couldn´t visit, so she instead spent Christmas and New Years with close friends and only nearest family.

Another response came from Paulus, another friend of ours. He told us that his and his family’s Christmas traditions are to eat lipeäkala (Lutefisk), Lapin puikula (almond potato), different casseroles, chili garlic, as well as rice porridge on the Christmas Eve morning and to drink Julmus, a local Mustila soft drink. There is also the declaration of Christmas peace which is being announced on the 24th of December and lasts until the 6th of January. In this time, no one is supposed to fight with one another. Furthermore, Samu Sirkan joulutervehdys (From All of Us to All of You) is being watched on tv.

Varvara, one of Mike’s classmates, told us: “On Christmas is okay to go a bit nuts and overreact with xmas decorations ;).” She usually eats pipari (gingerbread cookies), drinks glögi (mulled wine) and watches the movie “love actually.”

Another person told us, that they were always spending the 24th with their family, eating Christmas food and going to sauna. After sauna they would dress up to something comfortable and then Santa would come. They would open the presents and spend the evening playing some board games and enjoying each other’s company. If there is snow, they would also go sledging.

“I spend with my family and have my grandpa and uncle visit us to eat Christmas food and open gifts. We also might watch a few moves such as The Snowman from 1982 and Joulupukki ja Noitarumpu (Santa Claus and the Magic Drum) from 1996. I usually celebrate Christmas twice due to my parents not living together but the Christmas with my Mom is the "real" Christmas for me even if I like the Christmas with my Dad more.” The same person who sent in this reply, also shared a funny Christmas story with us: “When I was a kid, I often got a few of the same items as gifts. For example, I might have gotten two dolls that are exactly the same. No big deal. One Christmas my little brother and I got a mini pool table as a gift. Everyone present at the time we like "You will definitely not get two of those" because as usual we had already gotten some toys twice. Well, the next gift opened was the exactly same mini pool table. So, we had two mini pool tables and two small kids who did not even know how to play. “

Another funny story we received was this: “My mom has this habit of hiding Christmas presents, she does it even If we are no longer living at home. Every year after we have opened the presents, my mom starts looking at our piles of presents asking did we like a new scarf. When we tell, we did not get any scarf, she runs away and brings few mystery packages she had forgotten in some of her secret places. The biggest mystery of Christmas :) “This person explained us about Christmas pulla ring: “You make pulla dough and braid it (like girls' hair), bake it, eat it. Several small ones for your friends or one Big for the family. “Another tradition is “going to the cemetery to light up candles for deceased family members. If you are in Porvoo, take a walk in the evening to the cemetery, it´s a beautiful sea of lights.”

We hope all of you had a great Christmas time and that 2021 may be an amazing year for you!

Also thank you to everyone who replied to our survey and we hope we can maybe share some more answers in the future. As always feel free to comment your thoughts and if you have any new year's resolutions.

- Lotte

"Santa Claus is anyone who loves another and seeks

to make them happy; who gives himself by thought or

word or deed in every gift that he bestows."

- Edwin Osgood Grover