One night to Christmas Eve! This is the day when the magic happens — all the preparations need to be done in advance if you wish to have a grand celebration where you can also relax.
In my family, we have fairly rigid traditions for Christmas Eve, including rice porridge, lighting the Christmas tree, visiting the graveyard to light a candle, bathing in a daytime sauna, and enjoying a very generous Christmas feast.
The feast, in particular, needs to be prepared beforehand. Finnish Christmas food consists largely of long-cooking vegetables, which require hours of preparation, so this is by no means a simple task.
So today’s job is to cook, peel, and chop carrots, potatoes, and beetroot, and to prepare the dishes so they are ready to be placed in the oven or serving bowls. The only dish I will finish tomorrow is the salad we call “Italian” — although I am fairly sure not a single Italian would recognise it as their own. It is very tasty, however, and fits beautifully on the Christmas table.
We prepare quite a bit of food every year, but on the other hand, there are several adults eating it, and we enjoy it over all three Christmas holidays. So there’s no need to worry — it all gets eaten, and nothing has ever gone to waste in this house.
After the food preparations, I went for a run and spotted some city lights that I decided to capture in a photograph.
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