Christmas in Sweden.

Since I cant get in to my blogg in swedish today and translate som of my old text, I thought I would tell You how we celebrate Christmas in Sweden. It´s probably much the same as in the rest of the world, but a few things are different.

Today I´ll shove You some of the flowers that grows in my woodland.Anemone nemorosa, usually white but this form is light blue.

The BIG day at Christmas is Christmas eve in Sweden. Usually the kids get some small presents already in the morning and then looks att some Christmasprograms on TV. Sometime around one o klock we start to eat the Christmasfood. It varies a bit depending were one live, but if one not is vegetarian we always have meatballs, littels sausages, pickled harrings (in many variations), stockfish (but that is more seldom nowdays thank Good :-) ) and Christmas ham. Perhaps You have ham too, but ours is put in brine for a couple of days.

Anemone blanda. One of my favourites. Flowers from spring to early summer. Spreads gently.

When we cook the ham we can do it in two different ways. Either we boil it in water for a couples of hours. When it has boild the right time, some people save the water whith the fat to dip stale bred in it. I don´t like that, but some people mean that it´s not Christmas untill they done that. The other way one can do it ist to put the ham in aluminiumfoile and put it in the owen for a couple of hours. One hour per kilogram. When that´s done we taste it for the first time, some of us want to taste it little too much :-) On Christmas eve morning the ham is covered whith a mix of eggs, breadcrumbs and mustard. Throw it in the owen again until the mustardmix is getting brown. Then it´s finished. Tastes wonderful!!

Trillium hybrid. This is my favourite of my trilliums.

At 15:00 (03:00pm) Most of us starts to watch a Tv-program that they have sent since I was a little child. Donald Ducks Christmas. More or less half our population watches that program. It consists of the same films every year. Parts from Disney movies like Snow white, Robin Hood and the best part Cinderella (when the mouses helps her making the dress for the big prom at the Kings palace) and som short films like Ferdinand the peacfull bull. They tried to change the program one year and show ”The ugly duckling” instead of “Ferdinand”. I can tell You that they wont make the same mistake again. I think that it is the only time revolution were around the corner here :-) :-) :-)

Rhododendron "Horizon Monarch". Is not really hardy here, but I really like it so lets hope it survives!

After Donald Duck it´s time for the presents. If there are little children Santa Claus comes and give us the presents. But we don´t call him that. We call him “The Christmas gnome” and all children meet him, no secrets by comming down the chimney in the middle of the night in Sweden. Of course there are some variations, but mostley it´s like this. At Christmas day we trie to meet those in the family that we didn´t meet at Christmas eve. It´s the same food then of course and presents will be given if they werent deliverd to Christmas eve. Second day of Christmas is for resting, because we need that then. Unless one have a distant relative that one visit or get visited by that day. Same food of course :-)
Have a nice day!

My absolut favorit in my woodland, Uvularia grandiflora. In Sweden we call it "Sorrow clock" Spreds very slowley by its roots.