A Swedish Christmas?

God Jul! (Good Yule, or Merry Christmas in Swedish)

So if we are doing the Swedish Christmas, here are some of the ideas that we used at out church's Swedish dinner last year. I'm posting them here because the links are all blog ready.

Swedish meatballs with ligonberry jam and cream gravy.(from IKEA of course)
Steamed new potatoes with dill.
Swedish pancakes.
gravalox - smoked salmon generally served on rye bread with cream cheese and cucumbers or some sort of baked salmon would work.
Caviar or creamy smoked fish roe on crackers or rye.
A bread like limpa/rye bread is traditional.
rice pudding.
There are tons of traditional Swedish desserts – cookies, cakes, sweetbreads. (Swedish spiced cake, or pepparkakar - ginger thins)
Ligonberry juice, and elderflower presse are common drinks. I even found a recipe for non-alcoholic glogg if anyone feels up to it.

Most of this stuff can be bought readymade at IKEA for those of us who live near one. Their meatballs and gravy are my favorite. But they also have lots of the salmon stuff, and some great pastries. Let me know how much I should just pick up.

As for traditional Christmas activities, St Lucia's day is huge in Sweden (a Protestant country at that). She represents the coming of the light. Although technically on Dec. 13, it could be fun to include in our celebration. More about her here. Even at Evangel (an old Swedish Baptist church) we celebrated St. Lucia Day.

Anyway just a few ideas for Christmas.