I'm already looking foward to Christmas! I'm a huge Christmas fan. Though in my family Christmas was never celebrated as a religious holiday as it isn't in many Finnish families. We still have most of our pagan traditions included in our Christmas traditions which I think is so cool. Also the name of Christmas doesn't have anything to do with christianity in my language, it's called joulu here and pronounced pretty much the same way Yule (pagan x-mas) is. For me Christmas is time of joy, peace, happiness and giving. I do love to get presents (I'm a big child at heart) but the best thing is to give presents especially to those who are most dear to me.
Usually for Christmas we have two parties (me and my boyfriend). In Finland Christmas eve, 24th of December, is the day we celebrate. Tradiotionally we eat rice porridge in the morning but as I go to see my family to my sisters or brothers place, my boyfriend goes to his family home, so we are separated. So my family has rice porridge for lunch before the big Christmas feast. The morning starts usually with children watching TV and mostly hot line for Santa Clause/ Father Christmas. There kids can call and tell Santa what they want as a present and they also show how Santa gets ready to leave to take presents all over the world. I watched this show when I was a child and it still come every Christmas, live from Korvatunturi where Santa Clause lives :)
In the evening the whole family gathers around a big table to eat. Most families have the tradiotional Christmas foods that hey have every year. These foods Finnish people have eaten for hundreds or years during Christmas and other celebrations though nowadays they are only eaten for Christmas. They include: swede casserole, potatoe casserole, carrot casserole, ham, fish in different forms (mostly herring and salmon and yes, we eat raw fish here it's either salted or marinated. But we also enjoy our fish cooked and my favourite part of Christmas food is oven salmon :P), potatoes, sauce for the ham, rosolli (like salad that's made out of preserved vegetable and herring topped with whipped cream made pink with beet root juice), peas and white fish with lye (not my favourite thing and many Finnish families don't have it anymore as it's not very popular). For dessert we have joulutorttu (Chrismat tart) which is a star shaped pastry. We also have a traditional Christmas pudding in our family that has plums, rice, whipped cream and quark (and of course made sweet with sugar). In addition there are all kinds of sweet pastries, gingerbread, pies and cakes that can vary depending on the family.
Besides food we also have a decorated Christmas tree. In Finland the Christmas trees are mostly rather simple compared to the huge glitter bombs that people seem to have in USA :D But this also depends on the family of course. Our Christmas tree has always been in the middle, not too flashy but still has lot of ornaments and stuff on it. When we were kids it was our duty (I have two siblings) to decorate the tree. Now I have my own Christmas tree to decorate.
I also LOVE buying Christmas presents. It's hard as I don't have much money and other people in my family do... So they are acustomed to such different quality stuff then I have. It's hard to find things to get for them. My friends are easier as they are not as demanding as long as I get something from my heart (which is easy when you are buying for your best friends).
The pictures are: 1. me and santa last Christmas 2. my niece on Santas lap 3. Didn't find a picture of my familys Christmas table so this is my friends Christmas table 4. My X-mas tree in my little room. We normally have two trees, the real one in the living room and small one in my room :) 5. My favourite tree ornament! 6. This years X-mas gifts for family and friends. Few presents still missing that are for my dog :D
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