Stockholm calling, and here is the votes of the swedish jury... oh wait, wrong show, let me just switch channels....
Ah, there we go!
Christmas here we usually spend with the family and we always give our gifts on Christmas Eve, and not on christmas day. We also gather around the table around 4PM and eat obscene amounts of food, that is a tradition that ties over from "old" days when they usually slaughtered a pig just before christmas, and not wanting anything to go to waste, they had a HUGE christmas dinner. We tend to sit down to this "dinner" at 4 since at 3PM we have another "tradition" that has stuck with us for like 50 years now, and that is at 3 PM, Donald Duck and his friends wants to wish us a merry christmas, so it's an hour long TV show with x-mas themed Disney shortfilms that I will be seeing for the ... ummm 46th time this year. Hey, what can I say, it's tradition
Anyhow, what we will be eating is the traditional Swedish "Julbord" with meatballs, glazed ham, sausages, sill (which is pickled herring, and it does sound disgusting but isn't really), "Janssons Frestelse" (which is a dish mad of cream, onions, potatoes and anschovies), Sylta (which I really can't explain what it is, it has to be experienced and personally, I loathe the stuff). Along with other traditional dishes. It is also tradition to drink "snaps" with the "sill", snaps being a 6-8 centiliter shot of spirits which is often spiced with hemlock or other spices. And of course, we usually drink Julöl which is a dark beer that is quite bitter. Then it is time for Santa to arrive, and by this time, the kids in the family are usually going ape about having to wait for santa so long that they are totally of their rockers
However, this year, that won't be happening, all our kids and grandkids are off celebrating at other places, so it'll just be wifey and me and we plan to take the doggies for a long walk, eat when we want to. And just a small "Julbord", light a fire in the fireplace and just have a very nice day enjoying each others company