A Swedish Christmas Eve

Since our visit to Sweden a year and a half ago, I've been dying to try out some Swedish traditions during the holiday season. Since last year we actually got to spend the holiday season with my Swedish Grandma Ruthie (which is actually even better), I didn't get a chance then, so this year was the first chance I had. Admittedly it was a little cobbled together, given that there's still plenty of settling in going on, but on Christmas Eve, we went all Swedish. First, Addy dressed up like Santa Lucia early in the morning (in Sweden they celebrate Santa Lucia day on December 13 to kick of the Yule, or the 12 days before Christmas—maybe next year we'll be organized enough to make that happen) and made sweet rolls for the family (from one of the little Pillsbury pop-cans). Then she went to Sera's bedroom and her brothers' bedroom singing Christmas carols. They joined her and went downstairs to wake Aaron with some more carols, and then we all sat down around the table for a breakfast of cinnamon rolls, apple cider (not quite as good as Swedish apple cider, but pretty good all the same), and Swedish eggs (which are really just super-scrambled not quite completely cooked eggs that Aaron is not a fan of, but which is how they served them in Sweden while we were there, and how my dad always prepared them for us growing up). It was a simple tradition, but we all really enjoyed it—the kids went all-out singing Christmas Bells are Ringing in a round, even.

After a fairly chill day (at least I don't really remember what we did during the day—probably more shopping since it seems like that was our main activity almost every day over the break) we had a dinner of Swedish meatballs (there's probably some awesome recipe for this somewhere, but in our house it meant a crockpot of store-bought meatballs and cream of mushroom soup with some sour cream added at the end served over egg noodles), which we followed with a molded rice pudding with raisins and cinnamon—Swedish style, of course!—with one whole almond hidden inside. The tradition goes that whoever gets the almond will have good luck all year long. This year Theo was our lucky winner! We followed dinner with a nativity pageant that featured a little less jumping on the couch than past years. Then we opened Christmas jammies and sang a couple of Christmas carols before bed. I have since learned that we also should have danced around the Christmas Tree singing a Swedish Christmas song. Maybe next year.

How's that for a very dull narration of a rather enjoyable Christmas Eve?