Christmas in Sweden

Why does Sweden celebrate on 24 December?

Historically, Sweden – like much of medieval Europe – counted sunset as the end of one day and the beginning of the next, rather than midnight. Under this system, Christmas Day (25 December) began at sunset on what is now 24 December.

Although Sweden later adopted midnight as the official start of the day, the tradition of celebrating Christmas on the evening of 24 December persisted and remains central to Swedish Christmas celebrations today.

Abundance of food

The food you eat at Christmas may still depend on where in Sweden you live, or where you came from originally. At the same time, many culinary traditions are shared across the country, shaped in part by the similar assortments found in supermarkets and the ready availability of convenience foods.

Today, fewer people prepare everything from scratch, such as salting their own hams or making pork sausages at home, and instead draw on ready-made products as part of a contemporary approach to Christmas cooking.

A few classic dishes on the smorgasbord (or smörgåsbord, as it’s written in Swedish) are: Christmas ham, the small Swedish pork sausage known as prinskorv, the creamy egg and sprat spread gubbröra, herring salad, pickled herring, home-made liver pâté, wort-flavoured rye bread (vörtbröd), Jansson’s temptation and the quite particular fish dish lutfisk.

The ham is first boiled, then painted and glazed with a mixture of egg, breadcrumbs and mustard. Lutfisk is made by soaking dried ling or sathe in water and lye to let it swell before it is cooked. It's an aqcuired taste.

Some enjoy their Christmas meal at dinner time, while others prefer lunch.

’Kalle Anka’ – Sweden’s Disney ritual

Sweden might be the land of digital choices, but many Swedes, for all their tech savviness, still stick to a cherished TV ritual at Christmas.

Come three o’clock, some 3 million Swedes switch on the screen to watch a cavalcade of Disney film scenes – From All of Us to All of You, or as it is known in Sweden, Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul (‘Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Merry Christmas’).

It’s a public service tradition that has charmed audiences since the 1960s, and some will argue that only after this familiar spectacle can the day’s festive celebrations truly begin.

A longer holiday period for most

The Swedish holiday leave over Christmas and the New Year is fairly long, usually extending a week into January.

After Christmas Eve, a series of visits to friends and relatives often ensues. It might be Christmas Day with the Anderssons or Boxing Day with the Johanssons. Some also go for a week of skiing in the mountains with the Svenssons.

In some ways, Christmas celebrations are more diverse than ever nowadays. Present-day family constellations, comprising ex-wives and ex-husbands, children from marriages old and new, newly acquired relatives and parents-in-law are all included in the festivities.

Perhaps the Swedish setting helps with the Christmas spirit. The ever-present candles and lights provide a nice contrast to the winter dark, the red wooden cottages are at their most attractive when embedded in snow, and the fir trees stand dark and sedate at the edge of the forest.

Advent – the countdown to Christmas

About four weeks before Christmas, the first Sunday of Advent kicks off the countdown to Christmas. That’s when people light the first candle in the Advent candlestick, a custom going back to the 1890s.

This is always a special event, eagerly awaited. Each Sunday until Christmas, Swedes light a candle (and blow it out after a while), until all four candles are alight. And on each of these Sundays, many Swedes enjoy glögg – a hot, spicy mulled wine with blanched almonds and raisins – and pepparkakor (gingerbread biscuits).

With every Sunday of Advent, the children’s expectations grow. On the telly, there is a special Christmas calendar show for families with 24 episodes that runs from 1 to 24 December. It, too, serves as a countdown to the big day.

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The perfect Christmas tree?

A few days before Christmas Eve, Swedes venture forth to look for the perfect fir tree – the tree that is the very symbol of Christmas.

Those fortunate enough to own land often cut down their own Christmas tree, enjoying the tradition firsthand.

For everyone else, buying a tree is the standard approach: in towns and cities, trees are commonly sold on streets or in public squares, while many also purchase them from tree farms. This way, Swedes across the country celebrate responsibly while bringing home their perfect spruce.

Trees are decorated according to family tradition. Some are bedecked with flags, others with tinsel and many with coloured baubles. And fairy lights in the tree complete the cosiness.

People also decorate their homes with wall hangings depicting gingerbread biscuits and winter scenes, with tablecloths in Christmas patterns, and with candlesticks, little Father Christmas figures and angels. Hyacinths fill the home with their powerful scent.

Swedes imported the practice of bringing a Christmas tree into the house and decorating it from Germany in the 1880s.

Swedish Christmas – some origins

In the old days, Christmas was a feast for the whole household as there was plenty of fresh food to be had. People laid the Christmas table with ham, pickled herring, jellied pig’s feet, sausage, rice porridge and lutfisk. The food was then left on the table overnight, as it was then that the dead came to feast.

Some of the old traditions are similar to today's. Homes were cleaned and decorated with wall hangings, and fresh straw was laid on floors. The birds were given an oatsheaf and the mythical farmyard brownie  a plate of porridge.

Initially, people gave Christmas presents anonymously and playfully, often in the form of a log of wood or the like wrapped up and tossed through a front door. In the 1900s, people began giving one another real presents, handed out by Father Christmas, who was modelled on Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of schoolchildren.

At the early-morning church service on Christmas Day, traces of earth could be seen in the pews where the dead had held their own service overnight. After the service, people raced to get home first. The winner would harvest his crops before anyone else that year.

On Boxing Day, you got up early to water the horses in streams running north, as Saint Stephen, the patron saint of horses, was said to have done. Another practice, which breached the no-work rule, was to muck out other people’s barns.

Twelfth Night commemorates the arrival of the Three Wise Men in Bethlehem. The Swedish tradition of 'stjärngossar' – ‘star boys’ –derives from this. In former times, boys often went round the farms carrying a paper star, singing songs in return for schnapps. Today, the star boys are a part of the Lucia celebration.

Swedish Christmas playlist on Spotify