1. We attended the reading of the Declaration of Christmas Peace in Turku on the 24th. It's been read out at the old town square since the 14th century, and is watched on TV/the internet by the rest of Finland. It was pretty special to be there in person. I took some video, which was mostly meant to capture the audio - singing of a hymn, then the declaration, then the national anthem.* What I did not capture was the sound of many gloved hands clapping after the ceremony was over - it was very singular.
2. After Christmas Peace is declared, Christmas has officially started. The shops all close and everybody hunkers down for the 24th-26th. The girls lobbied hard for us to adopt the Finnish tradition of opening presents on Christmas Eve, but we stuck to our own tradition of opening one present only the night before and saving everything else for Christmas itself.
3. I made joulupuuro (Christmas rice porridge) and hid a nut in it and served it to everyone. This is another Finnish tradition we tried on. Magda got the not in her portion and it was fun and all...but nobody really liked the porridge. So we might not repeat this one. I like what my French neighbor did in Sharjah - she hid an almond in a cake and served it on Three Kings' Day. Maybe we'll adopt that tradition instead.
4. On the evening of Christmas Day, we went to visit a cemetery. This is another Finnish Christmas tradition - people visit the graves of their family and leave candles there. Obviously we don't have family buried here, but we decided to go see the candles anyway. And it was breathtaking! My camera could not do it justice.
5. I did not make any of the strange root-vegetable-based casseroles that are tradition here, but I did make a kinkku (ham). We drank glögi. We also made (a few days ago) joulutortut - star pastries.
It was fun to pick and choose traditions to see what worked for our family's Christmas!
*The national anthem, by the way, is NOT Finlandia! I found this out when I was googling the lyrics so I could sing along. Apparently there is a movement to MAKE it Finlandia, but right now it's a different song. Maybe it's kind of like how The Star-Spangled Banner is our national anthem, but everyone kind of wishes it was My Country, 'Tis of Thee or America the Beautiful?
