Sweden does indeed celebrate on Christmas Eve. In the late afternoon, when the sun sets, Swedes celebrate with a smörgåsbord. It contains a variety of hot and cold dishes and ends with sweets and rice pudding. The custom of bringing a tree into the house started in the 1880's and came from Germany. Originally the giving of presents was anonymous. A log would be left on someone's door step. There might be a riddle or poem attached and the receiver would try and figure out who had left it. The original Secret Santa! As near as I can tell, the custom of Santa giving presents didn't originate until the early 1900's, but I could be wrong. It does seem like it started in the late 1800's/early 1900's though. Too late for the Anderson family, but maybe George Henrickson knew about it?
As for why Swedes open their presents on Christmas Eve and not Christmas morning, I really couldn't find a good answer. The closest I could find is that in old Nordic culture, the people celebrated holidays on the eve. The holiday started as soon as the sun set according to their calendars and keeping of time. The Swedish church set the time of 6 pm as the start of holidays.
A modern Swedish Christmas tradition that I really like is that at 3pm, on Christmas Eve, Swedish television plays a Disney cartoon special from 1958. It contains Donald Duck cartoons, along with other Disney films. Everyone in Sweden sits down to watch Donald Duck, every year. Definitely my kind of tradition! :)
When I was researching Christmas Eve celebrations, I learned that most countries that DO open presents on Christmas Eve and have big celebrations are generally located in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. More so the Northeastern Europe countries.
What traditions do you remember about Christmas Eve? Christmas Day?
We used to go to Grandma Gouchers (Pearl Henrickson) on Christmas Eve and do the dinner and open presents with them and our aunts and uncles and cousins. Unfortunately That only lasted an only a short time because my dad and Grandpa Goucher got upset with each other. I do remember the family reunion that we had at the farm too. It’s a shame my dad kept us away from the Henrickson side of the family. I’m really interested in our family tree.
ReplyDeleteOur small country church always had a Christmas Eve service. One year, I sang in the choir and afterwards, we each got a navel orange as our present. Back then, oranges were quite rare in Michigan at Christmas time. All the adults thought it was wonderful but I was hoping for candy
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