Merry Christmas from Sverige!!
Well I have just finished my first Christmas weekend away from home, and surprisingly it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Of course I missed my family, but its only 1 christmas out of a lot I will spend with them. And I am learning a whole new culture through it, so its a very good experience for me. The Christmas traditions here are definitely much different than back home. For one, Christmas is celebrated on the 24. Everything is done on the 24, and the 25th is just like any other day.
So for me it started on the 23 when the tree went up. My host family has a fake tree, just like my family back home so that was nothing different. We decorate it much more though back home. All they put up here were the balls, and some streamers. Back home we put up EVERYTHING, so the tree is a little bit more naked here. It was nice though, I just enjoy the atmosphere that is given off by having a christmas tree up.
So even though Christmas is celebrated on the 24th here, it does not have the same anticipation as it does back home. You do not wake up on the 24th and open your presents. I was up as if it was any other day. Then I had breakfast and just relax and got ready for the day. Then at 3pm everyone in my family comes together and we watch Donald Duck. It is a tradition here in Sweden that everyone watches. Every year it is mostly the same show, except for the few clips at the end that are different. I have actually seen most of it before, except some of the cartoons were in Swedish. The song from bear necessities from the jungle book was a clip, bella notte from the lady and the tramp, and some other donald duck and mickey mouse clips were also in the show. It was quite enjoyable, we eat a lot of christmas snacks also while watching so it was great!
So then after watching Donald Duck we all open presents. Opening presents is a little different. Everyone doesnt open their presents at the same time, one person goes, then the next and so on. I got a lot of very nice presents. I got a bath robe from my host mother, a book from my host father and also from my uncle, a shirt from my sister, underwear that says sweden from my host sister, movie tickets from my host brotther, a nice new years tapestry a blown glass figure and money from my rotary counselors, a hat and a comic from my grandparents, and some more on the way that are on the slow boat to china that are from my parents.
After we opened present we ate dinner. We ate the julbord, which is full of tons of christmas food. There are ham, swedish meatballs, little sausages, cold salmon, herring, and some swedish stuff that I dont know how to translate into english, but it was very good. After dinner the family except for anna played cards. They taught me a poker game called chicago, and another game that they play a lot. I really like to play card games, so it was a ton of fun. We played for an hour or 2 and then we went back to doing our own things. It was a very nice night and an enjoyable, but different christmas. On the 25th we went to a family friends house for fika. Fika is like afternoon tea in swedish. We had apple pie and blueberry pie with ice cream. Then we all went to see Narnia, which was a good movie but not very good acting at all. Then we came back and had left overs of christmas food and pizza. Today on the 26 I have not done too much. I have taken it easy for the whole day, but we are getting company very soon. They are neighbors and they come with all of their left over christmas food, and we mix ours with theirs and we finish off the christmas food!! So I must go get ready. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! In swedish that is God Jul och Gott Nytt År!!!