Christmas Eve preparations

Posted by: fracas on December 24 @ 5:09 pm

Christmas Eve has traditionally been the day in my family which we celebrate with great enthusiasm. I have tried to carry on the Swedish traditions as much as possible where the centre around the day is the Christmas table, which entails a whole array of culinary dishes. In Sweden TV is very central around Christmas and there are two Christmas TV shows that most Swedes will watch Kalle Anka och hans Vanner (Donald Duck and his Friends), a potpourri of Disney clips old as new and Karl Bertil Johnsson’s Julafton (Karl Bertil Johnsson’s Christmas eve) which is my all-time favourite. After TV we started to devour the Christmas table with friends and family followed by the exchange of gifts.

As we don’t have the same TV tradition here, I tend to use the afternoon hours to bake and cook. The Christmas table has extended over the years and this Christmas we will be having stuffed turkey, glaced ham, smoked salmon with mustard sauce, several types of pate, fois gras, meatballs, brussel sprouts, red cabbage, mustard fruit, cranberry sauce and port sauce. To this we open a bottle of champagne. We finish off with a typical Swedish Christmas dessert – Rice pudding a la Malta, which consist of rice pudding, cream, cinnamon and an almond. They say the one that catches the almond will get married next year. Needless to say there won’t be an almond in this years Christmas pudding!

Dinner usually starts around 8 until late and after we have savoured the last bits we start with the gift exchange. This often goes on until 11 pm and if we are still awake and it’s not to cold we celebrate Christmas mass.
Here is the day so far in pictures…

Victoria