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| Christmas On Net » Christmas Celebration » Christmas Celebration in Sweden |
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Christmas Celebration in Sweden |
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This Christmas are you planning for a trip to Sweden? Make your holidays more mirthful and merrier by going for the Christmas celebration in Sweden! Christmasonnet offers you a complete page on the various types of Swedish Christmas traditions and other Christmas related facts in Sweden. Go through the page and get your travel bags ready, for you will soon feel like visiting Sweden during Christmas holidays! The Christmas celebration in Sweden commences with the Saint Lucia ceremony. This custom goes back to a Christian virgin, Lucia, who was martyred for her beliefs at Syracuse in the fourth century. In this ceremony, before dawn on the morning of December 13, the younger most daughter from each family gets dressed on a white robe with a red sash on it.
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After that, she wears an evergreen crown that has tall-lighted candles attached to it.Then she goes for awakening her parents and serves them coffee accompanied with Lucia buns. The other children of the family lend her a helping hand, too. The boys get dressed as star boys by wearing pointed hats and long white shirts, carries star wands with them. This ceremony is quite an important one in the Swedish Christmas celebration.
Though the St. Lucia ceremony is fairly recent, still it represents the traditional thanksgiving to the gods for allowing sun to return. On the Christmas Eve it is always the mother in the family who lights the candles. Processions are carried to the Church where thousands of people gather with lighted candles in their hands, thus brightening up the dark night.
Swedish Christmas Eve dinner or Swedish Julafton can be a buffet or smorgasbord that dishes out pickled pigs feet, Christmas ham or julskinka, and dried codfish or lutfisk. There is also a tradition during this dinner. A special type of rice porridge called Risgryngrot is prepared that contains a hidden almond in it, and according to the tradition the person who finds the almond in his/her bowl will get married in the coming year.
Regarding Christmas trees in Sweden, then it should be noted that during Christmas Celebration in Sweden holiday trees are usually found in the homes just two days before Christmas. The holiday tree decoration includes apples, straw ornaments, candles, Swedish flags, and small dwarf figures with red tasseled Santa caps. The houses are beautifully embellished with colorful flowers like red tulips, goat-shaped gingerbread biscuits, stars, etc. It seems that whole Sweden gets soaked in the festal spirit of Christmas!
On the Christmas Eve, after the dinner the family members or friends get dressed up as tomte or Christmas gnome. Unlike the popular Santa Claus, the tomte is believed to live under the floorboards of the house or barn and rides a straw goat. But like Santa, The tomte is also believed to wear white flowing beard and red robe, goes on distributing gifts from his sack. This is a Swedish Christmas belief that is followed even nowadays.
For further queries and information on Christmas celebration, keep browsing the pages in our site Christmasonnet. Happy Holidays!
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