Here in Sweden we keep our traditions alive. We have many special nice days and weekends, when our families get together to celebrate and eat special nice food. Many feasts have existed for centuries, but some of them which we have got for example from the USA are quite new.
Valentines day The year starts with two small feasts in February. The 14th it is "Valentines day". Valentin was an Italian monk who lived in the 200-century and he married young couples who loved each other. That didn’t the emperor like, so he killed Valentin and because of that Valentin now is a saint. Nowadays we celebrate his day by sending love cards, heart shaped candies and presents to those we love.
Shrove Tuesday The second small feast in February is called Shrove Tuesday. It is the first Tuesday of the Lent and during it you should eat as much as you can, because during the fast, before Easter, you were not allowed to eat meat, eggs and fat food. It all comes from when Jesus walked through the desert without food for 40 days. The Lent finishes with Shrove Tuesday and then you traditionally eat cream buns. Back in time many people ate the cream buns in a soup plate with hot milk, which had boiled up with bark cinnamon. But nowadays a cream bun is a plain bun filled with almond paste and whipped cream.

	Easter The most important Christian feast, Easter takes place in the end of March or in the beginning of April. Easter begins with Maundy Thursday; it was then the people paid tribute to Jesus when he came to the city. The day after is called Good Friday because that day Jesus was sentence do death by crucifixion. Since then that day has been a very dark day, the longest day of the year. Just a couple of years ago no shops were open, and you were not allowed to have fun, like going to the cinema. After Maundy Thursday and Good Friday it is Easter Eve, Easter Day and the Whit Easter Monday. According to the Bible Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Day. During Easter Swedish people eat a lot of boiled eggs and pickled herring.
We also eat lamb and salmon. In the morning of Easter Eve we traditionally decorate our homes with birch twigs and painted eggshells. In the last couple of years the children dress like Easter witches on Maundy Thursday, then they go out knocking doors to get some candy. Almost every child gets a paper egg filled with candy on Easter Eve. The week before or after Easter all the schools are on holiday.
Midsummer In the end of June we celebrate Midsummer because it is the shortest night of the year. We make a maypole with birch leaves and flowers which we later will be dancing around. Some girls also pick nine different flowers to sleep on because then they will dream about the man they will be married to. We eat mostly pickled herring with potatoes. The Christian church celebrates Midsummer because it is John the Baptist’s birthday.

Christmas The biggest feast of the year happens in the winter and it is called Christmas. We celebrate it because Jesus was born then. During Christmas time we decorate our homes with Advent stars, Advent candlesticks and small Santa Clauses. Christmas celebration start on Advent Sunday and after that we light a candle every Sunday to Christmas Eve. The 13 December Lucia comes with candles in her hair, holding gingerbread biscuits and Lucia cats (a kind of saffron bun eaten especially at Christmas time). On that day every school choose a Lucia and then they sing and have fun. Eleven days after Lucia Christmas comes. On Christmas Eve we decorate our homes with a Christmas tree and under it we put our
Christmas presents. In the evening all the family gets together for eating Christmas ham, veal brawn, salad with beet root, potatoes, small sausages, meat balls, pickled herrings and much more. When we have eaten our food and it is becoming dark Santa Claus comes (a man from the family who is dressed out) to give out presents. The day after is called Christmas Day and then the family gets together again to eat Christmas lunch with all the special foods.
New Year Finally the year ends with New Year. Then friends get together to end the year and celebrate the New Year coming with good food and fireworks.

Why not try our nice specialities? Here you have some recipes!

Recipes
24 cream buns		35 Lucia cats
100 gram butter 4 decilitre milk 50 gram yeast 1 decilitre sugar 1 tea spoon cardamom 2 measuring-spoons salt	10-12 decilitre wheat-flour 1 egg for brushing 200 gram almond paste 2 decilitre cream Icing sugar	100 gram butter 5 decilitre milk 50 gram yeast 250 gram kesella light 17 decilitre wheat-flour 1 ½ decilitre sugar	½ teaspoon salt 1 gram saffron raisin egg for brushing

1) Drawn butter in a saucepan. Pour in the milk and warm up to 37 degrees, fingerwarm. 2) Stir the yeast with the fluid. Add sugar, cardamom, salt and almost all flour. 3) Work the dough and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. 4) Take up the dough and divide into four equal parts. Roll the part into lengths and then split every length into six parts. 5) Set the oven on 250 degrees. 6) Roll the parts into balls. Put them on a baking-plate with baking-oven paper. Let it rest for 20 minutes under a tea cloth. 7) Brush the buns with a whisked egg and bake them in the middle of the oven for about 6 – 8 minutes. 8) Cut the cover of the buns and fill them with almond paste and whipped cream. 9) Then put on the cover and sift the icing sugar on the bun.

1) Drawn butter in a saucepan. Pour in the milk and warm up to 37 degrees, fingerwarm. 2) Stir the yeast with some of the fluid in a bowl. 3) Add the rest of the fluid, kesella, saffron, sugar, salt and most of the flour. 4) Work the dough until it is becoming smooth. Let it rest under a teacloth for about 40 minutes. 5) Set the oven on 225 degrees. Knead the dough on a floured pastry board. Bake out Lucia cats and put them on a baking-plate with baking-oven paper. Let them rest under a tea cloth for 40 minutes. 6) Decorate the buns with raisins and brush them with a whisked egg. Bake them in the middle of the oven for about 5 – 8 minutes.

© 2002 Freeway
Writers:Åsa Jacobsson (nv04-34@park.se)
Mariell Dahlin Darebro (nv04-45@park.se)
HTML by: Juha Kangas (te04-35@park.se).