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Christmas celebrations with the family - and a bit about Swedish Christmas food

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In the end, Christmas was celebrated for us too! On Christmas Day, my mum invited our whole family and my brother's whole family to a Christmas table, coffee, Christmas cookies and Christmas sweets - as it should be at Christmas. A very nice afternoon and evening! And now that we've been eating traditional Swedish Christmas food all day, I thought we could talk about ... Swedish Christmas food.

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Christmas food in different countries

The Swedish Christmas table is actually quite unique. In some of our closest neighbours - Norway, Denmark and Iceland - they don't serve a table of different dishes as in Sweden at Christmas, but instead eat a proper dinner. In Norway it might be ribs with potatoes, gravy and sauerkraut and in Denmark it might be roast ham or duck with potatoes, brown sauce and red cabbage.

When I lived in Iceland, lamb was served with potatoes, sauce and red cabbage. In Finland, although many different dishes are eaten, they are not very similar to Swedish Christmas food. Instead, they serve dishes such as turnip box, carrot box and pies.

What do people in other parts of the world eat? When I googled, it seems that in the UK and the US they eat turkey, in France a lot of exclusive things like foie gras, oysters and lobster, and in Eastern Europe 12 different dishes to symbolise the 12 months of the year. Which countries' Christmas foods do you know and can tell us about?

Ostron
If you are in France, you may be served oysters at Christmas.

Swedish Christmas food and local specialities

In the past, the Swedish Christmas table probably varied a lot between different parts of our country. Nowadays, the differences are less pronounced and many Christmas tables include classics such as herring and gravad salmon, eggs, Jansson's temptation, Christmas ham, meatballs, prince's sausages, ribs, liver pâté, smoked sausages, beetroot salad and wafer bread. But there are some variations, of course!

For example, my mother always serves kale on the Christmas table, which is a Halland speciality. Do you have any local specialities on the Christmas table in your family?

Mammas fina julgran, med flaggor som
Mum's beautiful Christmas tree, with flags that have been around for generations.

Top photo: Peter's son Billie, Peter's son Robin and his wife Alexandra, Peter, my mum, my nephews Jesper and Gustav, my brother Johan, my sister-in-law Anneli and my youngest nephew Viggo.

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