My first Christmas in Sweden was a grand success!

We started the month out with an engagement while we were back in the States visiting my family and made it back to Sweden just in time for the Christmas festivities!

The Swedish Christmas traditions couldn’t be more different than the American ones I know and love. First of all, the Swedes celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, something you will never get me to understand. We start the day with a Christmas breakfast of Risgrynsgröt, which is basically a rice pudding sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and topped with milk. Not everyone is a fan, but I had seconds! It’s warm and filling and just tastes like Christmas!

Then there’s napping, family time, lounging around, pretty much whatever you’d like. Late in the afternoon is julbord, Christmas dinner. It’s served as a buffet and I must admit, was a meal of very few things I identify with Christmas, or recognized for that matter. Keeping with the Swedish tradition there was a good amount of fish featured dishes. Being a non fish eater, I passed on all of those. The rest of the buffet included two types of pickled cabbage (red and white), salad, ham, meatballs, tiny hotdog weenies, bread which is meant to be dipped into the pan drippings from the cooked ham (this is why the day is referred to by Swedes as Dopparedagen, or Dipping Day), red beet salad, boiled potatoes, and hard boiled eggs served with mayo, dill, and topped with shrimp. It was certainly a change of cuisine for an American at Christmas!

Julbord is finished by 3 in the afternoon, so that the family can watch the classic Christmas program of Disney cartoons and movie clips dubbed in Swedish (most of which are not related to Christmas in anyway). After that is over it’s coffee, dessert and glögg, another Swedish Christmas classic. Glögg is a mulled wine served warm and usually includes a few raisins and nuts in the cup for added flavor.

If there are children in the mix, this is usually the time Santa makes his debut. Yes, Santa comes over with his sack full of presents. The role is usually played by the father of the house. I tried to explain the fatal flaw in that tradition. You’re not supposed to see Santa! That’s what all the Christmas stories, movies, songs explain! If you see Santa on Christmas Eve he doesn’t leave your presents. . . I got no where.

In our case, we skipped Santa’s visit and went right to the opening of gifts, which there was no shortage of! The Swedes  are such kind and generous people. I was overwhelmed with the thoughtfulness and Christmas spirit that filled the house. It made it much easier to be so far from my own family and traditions.

Since all of Christmas is celebrated on the 24th, that means that the actual day of Christmas is like any other day in Sweden. Christmas is over. But not this year, Sweden! With this American present we made sure there was an American Christmas on Christmas day. We had friends at our place and Lover Boy and I had a typical American Christmas celebration complete with stockings, beer, and an American Christmas feast! We ended the night in a club, partying our Christmas away.

All in all, I’d say it was a wonderful Christmas and a very successful melding of two Christmas cultures. It left me very excited for a future full of twice the traditions, love, food, presents, and Christmas joy.

So as they say in Sweden God Jul och Gott Nytt År!

Oh ‘Merica the Great! How I miss thee. One month down in Sweden and it’s only now that I realize what I miss most about the Mother Land.

Let me break it down for you in a little post I like to call: “The Top 10 Things Sweden is Missing Out On (Seriously Sweden, Get Your Act Together Because This is a Little Ridiculous)”

1. Let’s just get right down to the nitty gritty here. Taco Bell. TACO BELL. Need I say more? No. No I needn’t.

2. Applebee’s. Or as my friends and I back home like to refer to it as Crapplebee’s. What I would give for an Applebee’s Oriental Chicken Rollup right now…

3. While we’re on the topic of crappy and unhealthy yet wonderfully delicious American restaurants, let me throw in a TGI Fridays. Technically they have three TGIF’s in the country of Sweden, but none are close enough for me to get to in a reasonable amount of time.  More importantly, the only real reason anyone goes to a Fridays, the Jack Daniels BBQ. I would eat my own hand right now if it was smothered and covered in that delicious amber sauce.

4. While we continue on with food, let me introduce you to number 5. Loaded baked potatoes. Swedes love their potatoes I tell ya, but they prefer them mashed and smothered in gravy. Most potatoes in the store are small and made for boilin’ and mashin’. None worthy to be baked for an hour, drowned in butter, sour cream, chives, and bacon. Ohhh the bacon!

5. Cereal. And when I say cereal I mean junk cereal. Sweden is a land rich with cereal; fiber enriched, granola packed, sugarless, tasteless, oat bran, cereal. Where are my Golden Grams? My Lucky Charms? My Life? My Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Oh God the Cinnamon Toast Crunch!

6. Vitamin Water, the number one way I got my water intake back in good ol’ ‘Merica. Yes, they have Vitamin Water here in Sweden, but get ready for this….it doesn’t taste the same at all. I guess when you remove most of the sugar and other things deemed “unhealthy” the taste is bound to change. But damnit, that’s what makes water worth drinking!

7. My hair will never smell the same again…or at least for the duration of my stay here. Herbal Essences. No orgasm inducing hair products here Ladies and Gentlemen, just standard (and unfragrant). *Siiigh*

8. This one was a shocker. Apparently people in Sweden let their cuts, burns, scrapes, and general owies heal “on their own.” I’m sorry? Come again? What about Neosporin??  No. No such thing. In fact, when I tried to explain this magical ointment to them, I was met with blank stares and confused faces. Tragic.

9. This one may seem a bit odd to put on my list. But let me tell you, if you were in a dire decorating dilemma and needed poster board to complete your DIY home decorating emergency, you’d be a bit flabbergasted at the lack of poster board in the country of Sweden. After an hour on Google with two Swedes, hand gestures, and shadow puppets we came to the conclusion that poster board does not exist here. DIY decorating emergency still on hold until further notice…

10. Last, but very certainly not least, Whipped Vodka. The one thing I need most to get me through the lack of items 1-9 in my life.