A Swedish Christmas
No other word in the Swedish language is so packed with happy thrills as the little word “Jul” which means Christmas. Even the dark, raw days of November pass somehow,…
From: Unknown To: 1930 C.E.
“A Swedish Christmas” from When I Was A Girl in Sweden by Anna-Mia Hertzman, 1926.
No other word in the Swedish language is so packed with happy thrills as the little word “Jul” which means Christmas. Even the dark, raw days of November pass somehow, in looking forward to the great festival season.
Our Christmas preparations begin early in the fall. We gather the hazel-nuts, and the finest and rosiest winter apples are put aside to hang on the tree. Early in November the hams and the many varieties of sausages hang in the smoke-house to be cured and smoked, and the meat is in the pickling-brine. All to be saved for the Christmas season which, in our country, lasts for several weeks.
In all well-to-do families there are new frocks, wraps, and shoes for all the mem- bers, all of which are made ready in ample time. The long evenings are occupied with mysterious handiwork, often behind locked doors—gifts for the family. School-bags, tray-cloths cushion-tops, and pretty mats and mottoes are to be embroidered in bright colors by us girls.
Articles are to be carved in wood, such as photograph frames, paper-knives, nut-bowls. Mother is busy knitting a many-colored scarf with soft, fleecy zephyr-yarn for Father.
The bees have been industrious during the summer. There are great cakes of beeswax to be made into fragrant candles. My earliest-remembered Christmas work was to cut the candlewicks the required length and make a knot at one end, then push the other end of the wick through the tip of the tin mould. The knot prevents the wick from being pulled out while the wax is being poured into the mould. The pourer takes a firm hold of the wick so as to make it run straight through the center of the candle, else the flame would be uneven and the candle burn lopsidedly. All the moulds are set in a tub of snow to harden the candles quickly, so that these moulds can be used over again.
While the candles hardened, it was my pleasant task to keep the wicks pulled straight, and each wick end must be in the center of its circle of wax. To get the finished candle out of the mould was accomplished by quickly plunging the mould into a pot of hot water, and the candle would slip out readily. To me this candlemaking seemed almost a religious ceremony; we used these hand-made candles only at Christmas. Mother had a delightful, secret way of perfuming the wax with some fragrant oils, the odor of which I have been able to find nowhere else. She took that secret with her to the grave.
The last two weeks before Christmas are weeks of intense activities. Bread of several kinds must be baked in huge quantities, like the sweet and sour limpa, a special Christmas bread flavored with caraway seeds and finely chopped dry orange-peel. Various kinds of wheat-cakes are made; also piles of the most amusing gingerbread figures: boys and girls, camels and horses, pigs and lambs, hearts and stars, and all are decorated most cunningly with almonds, currants, raisins, and red-and-white sugar.
Then there is the Jul-ale to be brewed and the lut-fisk to be prepared. The lut-fisk is a variety of sun-dried cod imported from Norway. It takes weeks of soaking in water and a strong wood-ash lye to soften this fish. Then the taste of the lye must be drawn out by further constant soaking in water, for the fish must be firm of texture and snow-white before it is fit to serve on Christmas Eve.
Before the great feast, every Swedish home is scrubbed from attic to cellar. Not a speck of dirt or dust is left when the twilight of December twenty-third falls. Jul-afton—the day before Christmas—is also a great day. To us children it meant more than Christmas Day itself.
Early in the morning on December twenty-fourth, we were served coffee and doppa while we were still in bed, doppa literally meaning to dip in the coffee anything served with it, such as sweet rolls, rusks, or little dry cakes. This, our first breakfast, tasted delicious, for the night had been “nippy,” the porcelain stove may have cooled off, and our maid had no time to make a fresh fire. That morning after our coffee and doppa, we were allowed to enter the chamber in which our parents slept. We came in to wish them “Good Jul” and then were usually invited to creep under the coverlets and cuddle up close to Mother while waiting for our room to get warm so we could dress.
During the Christmas season, I always felt happier than usual, for no matter what mischief I did, I was not punished for it. And, somehow, it seemed so much easier to be a well-behaved girl during the great festival season than at any other time of the year. Even my two name-days and my birthday were no exception; if I deserved punishment, I surely got it.
As soon as we had dressed and said our morning prayers, we were set to work unwrapping the decorations for the Christmas tree. Of course, we had no glittering, multi-colored ornaments such as American boys and girls hang on their trees. We had a few meager treasures of tinted and blown glass, gold and silver stars, angels of wax and paper with gauzy wings and shimmering robes; but we used home-made ornaments, such as tiny baskets for nuts and bonbons woven of bright paper strips. Then, too, we had gilded pine and spruce cones, also silver and gold-painted walnuts; and what with the red apples and gingerbread figures and the candles, our Christmas tree looked lovely.
Early in the forenoon, the cutting of the tree was done. Father had permission from a farmer just outside our town to cut the tree he liked. If the weather was nice, my sister Constance and I were allowed to come with Father to the spruce forest and help him select the prettiest tree: he looked almost like a stately pagan priest in his fur coat and helmet-like fur cap, with the axe slung across his shoulder.
He always made a pretty little ceremony out of this tree-cutting. After a perfect one had been found, he would walk up to the nearest and largest tree, doff his cap, bow low before it, and say in a deep, solemn voice: “Dear Father Spruce, I salute you. May we bring your pretty child to our house to help us celebrate Christmas? ”
For a few moments we were all tense, waiting for the reply. We girls imagined we saw the lofty top of the old tree bend slightly. This we told Father and he took it as a favorable sign. And with a few strokes of his axe, the little tree was felled. Soon it lay on the sled, and we would return to the city. Most people bought their trees in town, but Father always preferred to cut ours himself. Next thing, the fragrant dark-green pyramid was set up in its green-painted wooden base and we began decorating it.
Soon the most tantalizing odors penetrated from the kitchen, and we suddenly discovered that we were so hungry, our mouths actually watered. In a short while Lotta, our maid, invited us to the kitchen to doppa i grytan, dip in the kettle.
On the stove stood a huge, burnished, copper kettle. In it had been boiling ever since early morning the entire head of a great pig, several sets of pigs’ feet, beef tongues, various meat sausages, a whole ham, some salted beef, and pork. All these viands had been removed to several platters and stood steaming on the kitchen table ready to be carried into the dining-room where the Christmas table was spread and would remain so until after December twenty-sixth.
On the white, scrubbed kitchen table stood serving plates, knives and forks, and some sliced limpa. Each participant in the doppa ceremony stuck his fork firmly into a slice of the limpa, then immersed it in the rich broth of the kettle until it was well soaked. It was then deftly flicked on the serving plate. Then one went into the dining-room where Father was busy slicing meat, ham, or tongue, distributing pigs’ feet, or anything else desired from the Christmas kettle. There was also the huge, plump cheese to be cut and sampled; it was Father’s task to cut into it and to eat the first slice, pronouncing it good.
Usually some friends came in for this meal to try the Jul-ale, wish the family “Good Jul” and make plans for some sleighing party or other entertainment in which we could all take part.
In my home there was not the feeling of feverish hurry at Christmas, for all things that could be done had been already attended to during the past few days. So a real holiday atmosphere was produced. All food had to be prepared on December twenty-fourth; for on the great day itself nobody was supposed to cook anything, except making the inevitable coffee. The same custom was followed on Good Friday, which was the most solemnly observed day of the year.
After we had literally stuffed ourselves with the many good things on the table, we returned to our various tasks. How we enjoyed sealing up the gifts! Even after thirty years of absence from Sweden, the odor of sealing-wax brings back the most vivid memories of the Christmas joys of my childhood. Of course we had no gay tinselled cords or holly ribbons or pretty embossed Christmas seals in those days; we used red twine, red sealing-wax, wand white paper for our packages.
But no package—no matter how humble—was complete unless it had a jolly jingle written on it. These little verses were supposed to be read aloud by the Jul-gubbe when the gifts were distributed, a person with a gift for rhyming being thereby given opportunity to express himself. Incidentally, the Swedish language is well adapted to poetry and song, for it is as liquid, musical, and sonorous as the Italian language.
The dinner on Christmas Eve is a stately meal. The table is a veritable “groaning board.” Delicacies such as cluster raisins, Messina oranges, hothouse grapes, and imported nuts are set out. The wax candles, in many-branched candelabras with their crystal prisms, light the table, while overhead the chandeliers help to illuminate the room.
The odor from the steaming lut-fish greets the nostrils. Tender, transparent, white, in a great quivering mound, this food is brought in on a blue-and-white platter, with the rich cream sauce in the gravy dish. After the fish course the main dish, Jul-gröt, is served. This dish is a rich, boiled rice-pudding, flavored with stick cinnamon and decorated with ground cinnamon and powdered sugar. In the center is a little lake of melted butter, and around the edge a deep ditch filled with honey. In the Jul-gröt, which is served with milk, a lucky almond is always buried.
But it is an immemorial custom that each person who is to partake of this special food must first Rimma för Gröten, that is, he must make up a nonsense rhyme—usually something complimentary to the hostess or the cook, or one’s table neighbor.
In my home Father always began. Each one in turn was expected to follow, the best he could. The stupid ones had a bad time of it; they stammered and turned red with the effort.
One story is related about a Christmas Eve dinner at the Royal Castle in Stockholm. The turn had come to Bellman, the court poet, to make up a gröt-rhyme. He had been placed between the Countess Griis of Bollnäs and her stupid, boorish son. Both were heartily disliked by the poet.
“ Now, Bellman,” the king prompted,“ it is your turn; do your prettiest.”
The poet raised his wine-glass, bowed to his two table neighbors, and rhymed:
“From the Rhinelands we get wine
And from Bollnäs we get swine.”
All but the countess and her son laughed. But the king protested that the rhyme was too personal.
“Bellman, we must have something dealing with a royal subject,” he said.
Once more the poet tried, and this time he again raised his glass to the Countess Griis and her son. (I forgot to state that Griis, or gris, in Swedish, means pig, hog, swine, of either gender.) This was his second rhyme:
“Solomon was Absalom’s brother
And the sow is the hog’s mother.”
“Bellman, you are hopeless! I must send you into exile,” laughed the king, pleased with his favorite entertainer, while the countess and her dull son tried hard to seem at ease.
Our own dinner is finished with “torta,” nuts and fruit. Before the Jul-gröt is removed from the table, a generous portion is put into a dish with an extra lump of butter in the center. This is for the “Tomte-gubbe,” or the “Good Luck Brownie,” who is said to live in the attic of every well-ordered house in Sweden. The delicacy is placed in the attic stairway, and at midnight the “Tomte-gubbe ” comes to have his feast. On Christmas morning, Lotta always showed me the empty dish. But the “lucky almond” in the Jul-grot! Oh, with what eagerness we all looked for it in our individual dishes! The one who found it would be especially fortunate during the coming year.
After the dinner, we all joined hands and marched about the Christmas tree singing old folk-songs and ballads. Usually Father excused himself, saying that he had some important business to attend to. As we were romping and singing, there came a fearful pull on our door-bell. We all stood still, waiting.
Mother bravely went to the door. When she opened it and looked outside, there stood the Jul-gubbe as real as real could be. He entered the vestibule and stamped into the living-room. He slapped his arms; he puffed and he panted as if he had been running. He wore a mask showing only a pair of keen grey-blue eyes through holes cut for the purpose of seeing. But it was a pleasant ruddy mask, with long, curly whiskers of grey.
We children stood at a little distance, hardly daring to breathe, for usually the “Jul-gubbe” carried a great sack when he came to our house. In fear we wondered what had happened. Still, Mother did not seem upset about this unusual occurrence. Instead, she offered him a glass of the Jul-ale which he sipped slowly; and then, very deliberately, wiped his beard with the back of his gloved hand. He rose as if to go, for he bowed to Mother and was already at the door, when sister Margareta set up a lusty howl: “Mother, don’t let him go! He always brought us presents other years.”
Upon hearing this distressful plea, the Jul-gubbe gave a happy chuckle, and went out to the vestibule, where, to be sure, we all saw the huge sack filled to the bursting point with packages.
Strangely enough, we all received the very things we had wished for. It was a pity Father could not be there to hear the clever verses on his own gifts. But he was much pleased when, a while later, he returned and found his pile of gifts waiting for him. At Christmas Father was a different person, it seemed. He was gentle, and even I dared to offer to do little things for him—warm his slippers and fill his great meerschaum pipe, and even strike the match and light it for him.
Then our day before Christmas ended with Mother gathering us before the living-room fire and reading to us from the great Dore illustrated Bible the story about the birth of Jesus. We were sent to bed early this evening, for in the morning we all attended the Jul-otta or early Christmas Mass in the church ten miles out in the country. Father and Mother had been married in this church; so perhaps it was for the sake of happy memories that they went there on Christmas morning to the early mass.
In Sweden we have the pretty custom of setting lighted wax-tapers in. the windows to burn all Christmas night. The fires are also replenished late that night, so the whole house is warm and cozy as we rise at three o’clock to be ready when the big sleigh, drawn by two splendid horses, comes along to pick us up. Counting the driver, we are eight people, all packed down warm and snug in sheepskin robes, until only our eyes and noses are visible. Then, with the music of the two dozen little bronze bells on the harnesses, we set off at a lively pace.
I wonder if any outdoor pleasure can compare with a drive through a snowed-under spruce forest on a cold frosty night! The poetry of countless stars shining in the blue-black sky; a waning moon hanging among the tree-tops; our sleigh lanterns casting weird shadows along the blue-white road.
After an hour or so of swift travel, we see the church, all lit up, leap into view. The church hill is dotted with unharnessed sleighs of every description, the horses being kept in the parish stables. Pedestrians in gay groups arrive, each group led by a lantern-bearer. And then three great bells ring for the third time—samman—like friendly arms of sounds reaching out and drawing us all into the church. All the pews are filled. Numberless tapers shine on ruddy peasant faces. Herr Jungstrom, the organist and cantor, sits on his bench in the organ loft, and soon the pipe-organ peals forth the mighty Lutheran Psalm-melody, while the congregation sings heartily, "War hälsad sköna morgon stund”—We hail thee, wondrous morning hour!
It seems to me that the very walls tremble and the roof of the church is about to take flight. Such singing is seldom heard. The Swedish people love to sing and express their joys and their longings in song. Then comes the stately Lutheran Mass with the priest or Kyrkoherde and his assistant, both arrayed in rich vestments. During the long sermon, there is, of course, many a nodding head. I never dared to sleep in church although it was ever a great strain to keep awake. Finally the droning voice of the priest says “Amen” and the recessional psalm is taken up.
After the service, one visits and meets friends in the parish house. Hot coffee and doppa are served. At last, in the grey-blue dawn, we are once more packed down into our sleigh, and the wild, swift ride home begins. Everybody tries to reach his own village before everybody else. It is no uncommon sight to find sleighs overturned by the roadside, their occupants half-buried under their fur robes and the deep drifts. All because of a superstition that the one to arrive home first will have the best and largest crop the coming year!
All of us remained quietly at home on Christmas Day. We children played with our new toys and read to each other out of our new story-books.
Next day the Christmas festivities began. In my country, there was senseless over-eating of rich food during this season, and among the men, much drinking. So, when finally the holidays were over—well past the middle of January—the people were half-sick and sluggish from the after-effects of too much food and drink.
There was a pagan flavor to many of the queer customs and legends connected with this season. In my home, at the party on December twenty-sixth, we usually had a pig roasted whole. It was a mouth-watering sight to see nasse roasted to a golden brown, and kneeling on a huge platter with an apple in his mouth, and a crimpy paper frill decorating his curled-up tail, to be carved by Father.
This roasted pig was a purely heathen symbol. In Wallhalla, the home of our old gods and dead heroes, a huge roasted boar was served and eaten each night, and behold, the next morning the boar was whole again. A symbol of Nature’s ever-renewing powers!
Then there was the Jul-brasa or fire, to be kept lighted until the end of Saint Stephen’s Day. This symbolized the return of the sun.
We also had a very pretty legend, possibly of Christian origin—that on Christmas night, the animals were given the power of speech for one hour. When Aunt Inga told me this, I immediately wanted to hear the animals talk, and so to give this fable credence, my aunt adroitly related a story of a servant girl who had also wanted to make sure that this really took place on Holy Night. So she hid herself in the cow-stable on Christmas Eve to witness the miracle, but alas, the next morning she discovered that she had lost her power of speech. It may be, said Aunt Inga, this had happened so that she could not tell human beings what the animals had been talking about.
Hertzman, Anna-Mia. When I Was a Girl in Sweden. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1926.
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