Christmas Dinner...

Really enjoyed doing my page about Christmas Dinner for my Christmas journal. I wanted to capture the cosy feeling of the table. So I opted for one very large photo with lots of journaling underneath the photo.


I think (hope?) some of you might find it rather interesting to read about the Christmas food. Being Swedish, this is quite different to what's being served in most UK (or indeed US) homes so that should make a bit of a change to read about.

I think just like the Christmas tree and the presents make up a large amount of "what is Christmas", so does the special food. So I was very happy to see the subject being brought up to write about. I can see that the text in the close-up photo is still rather on the small side. So here's the journaling:

We of course have the traditional Swedish “julbord” (“Christmas table”) on Christmas Eve. In old times people could have hundreds of dishes on their Christmas table. Making their own sausages and cheeses etc. In modern days, each family has narrowed it down to their own favourites. We always have a few different types of marinated herring (yuck!), hardboiled egg halves, smoked salmon, Christmas meatballs, baby sausages (“prinskorv”), Christmas cheese, special cabbage called “brunkål”, Christmas bread (“vörtbröd”) and of course the Christmas ham! Everything is served with Christmas beer or Christmas drink called julmust and some spirit that dad adds the “malört” herb to, to create his special drink (“besk”).

Dad usually does the food shopping for Christmas and mum makes the ham on the 23rd. The rest of the food is prepared just before we eat and everyone helps making it ready. We usually end up eating quite late because the opening of the presents take so long. We also sit at the table for quite a long time enjoying the food and playing “games”... going around the table, taking turns to answer questions like “what was your best present and why?” and “what’s your favourite dish on the Christmas.