Swedish Christmas

This was my second Christmas in Sweden but the first one I celebrated like a Swede (the first was celebrated with other exchange students). I will just share a little about what we did and some traditions.

Rice pudding

First off, they celebrate Christmas on the 24th and then on the 25th people go out with friends and party. So on the 24th which is called Julafton, meaning Christmas Eve, we started the day with Tomtegröt which is rice pudding and it is to die for! There is a tradition that you put one almond in the pot of rice pudding and whoever gets the almond on Christmas Eve will be the first to marry or have good luck. In Daniel's family, it means you win a lot of candy. Works for me!

Melt in your mouth truffles

After this we finished up some chocolate truffles we started the day before by rolling them in cocoa powder, almonds, and walnuts.

Julbord and Daniel eating a plate

Julbord, Christmas dinner commonly includes a ham, beet salad, meatballs, and vörtbröd. At this table, we also had hard boiled eggs with a shrimp salad on top, brussel sprouts, home made crunchy bread, red cabbage salad, and ribs. Everything was amazing.

After dinner we ate candy, truffles, another rice pudding with orange wedges in it, and had some glögg, which is a red spiced beverage that you drink warm with almonds and raisins in it. Often it has some sort of alcohol. What is Christmas without alcohol.

Eggs with shrimp salad

All in all this was a very enjoyable Christmas. The dinner felt a lot less indulgent than America but the amount of candy these Swedes eat makes my stomach want to cry. I will probably be changing some of my American food traditions and exchanging them for some of these Swedish ones!

Meatballs!

Hope you all are having a nice winter and staying warm!