It is finally the day we have been waiting for and preparing for the whole month: Christmas Eve! There are so many traditions and so many fun things that it is a bit difficult to even begin.
Instead of a long wall of text, I will include a large gallery of photos full of my day, starting from the morning porridge, all kinds of Christmas treats made and eaten, watching the Santa Claus answering calls from the children and Turku declaring the Christmas Peace, and of course the Christmas sauna and the very full Christmas dinner.
One of the most curious traditions of Finnish Christmas, however, is visiting the graveyard. Christmas is the main day for people to do this, and apparently this comes from the very old tradition of Kekri, which was a harvest festival in a very ancient Finland. Nowadays, it is common to visit your loved ones’ graves and light a candle there. In my case, my grandparents are buried very far away, and there are places in local graveyards to light a candle.
After all the other activities, it was time for presents. More than the present itself, at this age, it is nice to see what kind of thing people have gotten you. It is hard to decide what to give to people because no one wants to have unnecessary items or items they do not like. My family is luckily pretty relaxed about this part; everyone participated as much as they wanted each year.
Lastly, I am in a bit of a wistful mood. December 24th is the final window of the Christmas calendar and thus the final post with this theme. I am probably not going to update every day after this, but I was thinking of continuing blogging after this as well to save the important events in written form.
In any case, I wish everyone a merry Christmas and very peaceful holidays! Eat well and enjoy this time!
Leave a Reply