A Scandinavian Christmas - Original pics and traditions from the homeland.

Celebrating Christmas, Scandinavian style. If you could't tell from my name, we're Scandinavian, and with the help of my S/O we try and bring that to every Christmas season.

The first thing we do is put up the julstjärna a month or so before xmas. It is simply a large star which represents a poinsettia (christmas flower). Ours is lit up and creates a nice night time ambiance (and we actually leave it up for a month before and a month after xmas, but don't tell anyone) Its hard to find English information to share with you about it, its all in Swedish, but: "star-shaped Christmas decorations with electric lighting, hanged in windows at the first advent" so I guess the first advent is the start of December, so no xmas laws were broken :p

(this is just a cellphone picture so excuse me for the poor quality)

During the cold winter nights it is a tradition to drink glögg (pronounced like "glug" or "clog" with a g instead of a c). To sum it up, its mulled wine (hot), but not quite like English mulled wine. the swedes like to add booze such as brandy to it, along with fruits and nuts such as almonds and raisins. You can find a NA version at all IKEAs if you want to ever give it a try for cheap. Make sure to warm it up and throw in some edible items as well!

Infographic via https://blog.bedbathandbeyond.com/bbb-recipe/swedish-mulled-glogg-recipe/

Just imagine coming in after an evening of skiing, or walking through the snow to a hot cup of delicious glögg.

Another tradition (which we haven't purchased or made by hand yet) is having a candelabra in your windows. You can read more about these here: https://www.thelocal.se/20111201/9242 . They are becoming quite popular thanks to IKEA. (I don't want to post a picture from the internet, and I don't have my own photography of it yet.)

Once its more appropriate time of the month to put up the Christmas tree, it is a tradition to decorate it with scandinavian flags, so we do!

Camera: Canon 5D Mark II
Lens: 70-200mm @ 105mm
Shutter Speed: .4 seccond
Aperture: f/6.3
ISO: 640

And a forever looping gif I created :)

The video doesn't have EXIF info so I can't tell you much but it is probably very similar to the picture above

And finally for one of the most insane traditions ever, is that swedes, on christmas day, all huddle around the tv and simultaneously watch Donald Duck cartoons (among other Disney ones. This year we caught the below video). I myself don't fully understand it, but I have to find a SVT stream so we can watch Donald the cartoon Duck every xmas day. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/12/nordic_quack.html

Lol it makes no sense to me why the swedes watch this all together at the same time every Christmas morning, but I guess tradition is tradition.

So those are just a few of the traditions we do every year, maybe next year I'll have a candelabra, and some good pictures to share with you all :) Happy new year.