christmas movies

Hello guys!

we (frida, fanny, karin, jennifer, rebecca and malin) have made some movies for you so you know how our swedish christmas is celebrated. There are two parts and the movie is filmed in such a distorted way that you will have to turn you head slightly to watch it. Hope you will enjoy the movie(s)!

part 1



part 2

Christmas Eve in Sweden

Here in Sweden we celebrate the Christmas with friends and family. Everybody celebrates their way, but there's much in common. It's usual to decorate your house and the christmas tree with different kinds of small santas, light loops and the colour red.
A few days before christmas the most families picks in a fir-tree and decorates it. After that you put all the eventual presents under the tree, which you receive during different times on the 24th.
You also eat a big christmas dinner with lots of different dishes that are special for christmas. At 15.00 the 24th there's a program called Donald Duck that goes every Christmas eve the same time. It contains a lot of short clips from various cartoon movies.

Rasmus, Karin and Frida

Christmas-movie

Hey!

It´s Christmas very soon, so we (Maja, Jonna, Linda, Ellen, Josefin and Allis) have made a christmas-movie for you guys to get some Christmas spirit here on the blog.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

JULMUST

"Julmust" is a typical Swedish tradition, and it's becoming stronger every year that we drink Julmust for Christmas.It is black in color and very rich in its bubbly and taste.
That Julmust is a Swedish Christmas tradition has probably not escaped many. Looking at the Swedish table around Christmas time you probably always see a bottle of Julmust standing on the table.


In Sweden, we drink approximately 60 000 000 liter must each year, it is almost seven liters per person. Over 45 000 000 liters of the must which drinks, drinks during December.



The spice mix of Julmust is so secret that only one person knows the recipe, his name is "Göran Roberts".

Swedish Christmas calendar

The Christmas calendar is a tv show that starts on december 1^st and goes on every day until Christmas day. Each episode is 15 minutes long. The story follows one or more head characters in their everyday life.

The first calendar was called ”Titteliture” and aired in 1960. A few of the most famous calendars are ”Tedskedsgumman”, ”Mysteriet på greveholm” and ”Sunes jul”.

This year's calendar is called ”Superhero christmas”. It's about two retired superheros and their grandchilds who come to visit.

A Christmas calendar can also be a calendar with paper lids to open and behind every picture there is a picture of something or sometimes chocolate.

/Fanny, Emma and Rebecca

St Lucia's day

St Lucia’s day

In Sweden we celebrate St Lucia’s Day. St Lucia is always on December 13th. There are many versions about why we celebrate it and how it began. The most of the versions tell us that it was about a Christian girl from Sicily named Lucia.

We are lightning candles during Lucia in an honouring memory of the girl Saint Lucia, the meaning of her name is light and she was the queen of lights. When she took the first step into a room the whole room was lit up. When we celebrate Lucia we have a Lucia procession where the Lucia walks first and her maids are right behind her.

The Lucia is wearing a long, white dress, a red wide string around her waist and a crown with candles on her head. Her maids are also wearing a white, long dress but instead of a red string they have tinsels in their hair and the candles in their hands. The Lucia is also holding her palms together when she walks.

Lucia was born in a rich family on Syrakusa in Sicilia. Her father died when she was a few years, so she was raised by her mother, Eutychia. Some stories tell that she, as a child, gave a chastity vow. When Caesar Diocletianus tried to kill her she wouldn’t die. He pored hot oil on her and cut a sword in her neck, but she didn’t die. Then someone did “the last lubrication” on her, and she died.

/Ellen, Josse and Allis

Allis Nyström

Hey!
My name is Allis and I´m 16 years old. I live in a town in northern Sweden, called Luleå. My parents are divorced. I have five siblings, four of them are living in London.
In my sparetime I like to play basketball, hang out with friends and just chillin'.
My school is called the Royalbird. I study at the basketball upper secondary school , we practise 8 times a week.
I´m 1. 83 meters tall.

If you want to know more about me, then just ASK! :D

Frida

Hi! My name is Frida, I'm 16 years old and my birthday is 17th November 1993.
I live in Örarna, a little village outside Luleå. I live with my mother, Marie, my father, Ulf and my twelve year old brother, Magnus.

I like to be with my friends and riding horses on my sparetime. I ride and take care of a friends horse. His name is Chaplin. I've been riding since I was five years old and I still think It's fun!
I have choosen to study health and wellness. I've chosen that school because I like to train and learn about healthness. And so far it's really fun! :)
I think school is fun almost all the time, but I don't like to do homeworks.

//Frida

Christmas illustrations

I'm going to write short about artists, who loves to draw christmas pictures. One of the most famous is Jenny Nyström. She was the one that draw the Santa-claus and gave it a face to Sweden. The Santa had grey beard, a red Santa hat and mostly he had grey clothes. When you see a Santa now, he only have red clothes. But on the old time he had same clothes as the Santa-claus on the picture. Jenny Nyström is the one that have drawed that picture. Jenny was born 1854 and died 1946.

Another famous christmas artist is Elsa Beskow. She was born 1874 and died 1953. She was famous for many fairy tales.

// Linda

Swedish wildlife

Right of public access

In Sweden we have something called the right of public acces.It gives you a big appertunity to be a part of the nature. You have the right to be almost everywhere you want. Apart from others hous territory if you dont destroy the nature.Here in Sweden we have alot of visiters from many other countries that wants to pick berries , hunt, or just to be.

The forest

In Sweden we have alot of forest. Mostly in the north. In many years we have used the threes for paper industry and so on. In the forest you can find many different kind of plants. And also many animals. Many people like to hunt in the forest. The most famous animal that we love to hunt is moose.

Mountains and scale

A big activity in sweden is slalom and snowboarding. We have beautiful scales in the north of Sweden, close to norway. Many visiters are coming to Riksgränsen, Hemavan and Tärnaby.On the spring its really beautiful to be in the scales. The sun is really warm and the snow is still there. Its really easy to get sunburnd, beacuse the sun is reflecting in the snow. On the summer you can go and hike on the scales.

Winter and snow

On the winter we have alot of activity's. For example, you can go up in the scales and. And of course drive snow-mobile in the nature. Many people like to drive the snow-mobile to a lake and jig. When you jig you are actually fishing in a hole in the ice. And you can compete with others and see who got the biggest fish.The winner gets a good price.


If you want to read more about right of public access, you can find information here.

Love, Jennifer and Linda

The Swedish New Year

New Year’s Eve!

I don’t think we do anything very special at New Year’s Eve in Sweden.

But we sure do celebrate it!

Some famous person makes a speech and we count down to 00.00.

The moment the New Year begins we shoot fireworks into the sky like everybody else.

We make toasts with champagne etc. to celebrate the New Year.

Some makes New Year resolutions about stuff like stop smoking, don’t waste money etc.

Jesper Sannerborg writing about the way he celebrates New Year’s Eve:

I don't know how you guys celebrate New Year, but I'm going to write a short text about how we do it the Swedish way!

At New Years Eve we usually eat some good food, then later on at midnight we go out and light some fireworks, Fireworks are great!

But unfortunately you can get seriously injured if you do something wrong...

I know a guy, he went out and lit some fireworks, but he wasn’t careful at all! He lit a firework and he didn't let go of it, he held on to the rocket

and was just about to let go of it, but he was too slow...

The rocket exploded in his hand, the hand just disappeared, the only thing left was some scraps of the hand! It was blood everywhere, like a fountain!

He ran in to the house screaming, they took the car and drove immediately to the nearest hospital.

He was lucky, he was close to die due to he loosed a lot of blood, But he survived!

However, that's not the greatest start of a new year.

Joel and Jesper.

Gingerbread

One typical tradition we Swedes have is the gingerbread biscuit. The first documented time of the appearance of the gingerbread was back in the 14^th century. Initially the gingerbread biscuit was baked by nuns and was sold in the pharmacy as medicine for a lot of different complaints.
Hans, a king, used to get prescriptions of gingerbread from his doctor because of his bad temper. There is a myth about the biscuit that say that they are supposed to make you kind hearted and generally nice.
The gingerbread biscuits are associated with christmas, but you still eat them all year round, just in smaller amounts. About fifteen years ago we only ate them at Christmas time but that has changed over the last years.
At Christmas we swedes usually intend to bake a lot of gingerbread houses, tiny miniatures of houses with walls and roofs made of gingerbread.

Christmas cookies

Saffron buns

Saffron buns are a pastry that is strongly associated with lucia weekend. “Lussekatt” is a form of common wheat buns but with a strong yellow color that comes from an ingredient called saffron.
The concept Lussekatt had originally nothing to do with Lucia, but is etymologically traced to Lucifer, that is the devil. It was in Germany in the 1600s as the custom with Lussekatt arrived. The devil, in cat form, gave the child beating, while Jesus as a child handed out brownies to the good children. To keep the devil away they colored saffron buns with yellow saffron spice. The bright buns were scaring Saffron, ie Lucifer.

How to make saffron buns:


INGREDIENT
ca 35 st
50 g Yeast
100 g Butter
5 dl milk
250 g Natural yogurt
2 bags of Saffron 1 g
1 1/2 dl suger
1/2 tsk salt
17 dl flour


Garnish:
RaisinPainting: 1 Egg


Do like this:
Crunch yeast in a degbunke. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the milk and heat to heat the finger, 37 degrees. Degspadet Pour over the yeast. Stir so that the Yeast dissolves. Add cottage cheese, saffron, sugar, salt and most of the flour. Work dough until it becomes shiny and smooth, and release from Bunker edges. Add ev. more flour. Let ferment covered in about 40 min. Set the oven at 225 grader.Arbeta the dough on floured surface and back out to about 35 kusar or fantasy characters. Place them on greased sheets. Garnish with raisins. Allow to ferment, covered in about 30 minutes. Brush with beaten egg. Bake in middle of oven 5-8 min. Major characters baked at 200 degrees for 10-15 minutes.

"KNÄCK"
This toffee is, perhaps in company with another toffee which we call “Ischoklad”, considered as a mandatory part of a Swedish Christmas celebrations. A classic!
This Christmas-candy is incredible good and tastes best when they are cold.
Once the batter has been cooked up to just the right texture, which can be soft to very hard, depending on your taste, it divides into small folded paper where it may solidify.

Recept on how you do this kind of Swedish toffee ”knäck”:
Servings:

About 40 pc

2 dl sugar

2 dl light syrup

2 dl whipping cream

1 tablespoon butter or margarine

3 tablespoons chopped almonds

Do like this:
Mix sugar, syrup and cream in a saucepan, preferably plastic coated. Boil vigorously 15-20 min.
Pour a little of the hot mixture into a cup with cold water. Is the batter to form a round ball is finished, otherwise the mixture boil for a few min.
Take the pot to the side and mix of yellow and almond. 4th Pour the batter into little molds breaking consolidated in one place. Let cool killing.

So now, go home and bake : D



/ Johanna,Jonna, Maja and Malin frome Sweden

Advent

Advent is the period that starts four Sundays before Christmas and lasts until Christmas Eve. The first Sunday of Advent starts the ecclesiastical year. Then people sing familiar hymns and songs, and the churches are filled.

We hang Advent stars and decorate our windows with electric candlesticks. We also have candlesticks with normal candles in. We light an Advent candle every Sunday. When we reach Christmas all four candles are lit in the candlestick.

Advent is all inception for all sorts of activities such as Christmas decorations, Christmas dinner, mulled wine receptions, Christmas parties and other social niceties.

The Advent calendar has twenty-four gaps which get opened one per day of all children until Christmas.

Merry Christmas! :) /Sara & Robin