Christmas Without Christ but.... who?

Ah, finally I have a few post-Xmas second to type in this long overdue blog entry.

Christmas. Mmm. I love it.

But first, understand one thing, Christmas in Sweden is not about Christ. The word is "Jul", meaning, our word doesn't even contain "Christ".

To us, Christmas is about a bunch of things...

Gathering the family

Every year we gather up the family and have a big Jul event. It can sometimes be tricky, as in "should we celebrate with your parents or mine this year" (and in today's modern "broken families" with multiple sets of in-laws, fathers, and mothers, it can be mind-numbingly difficult). Myself has "decided" since we built our own house, to celebrate Jul at home... whoever wants to do it with us, is welcome here - we don't go nowhere. Of course we havn't actually held this rule stricly, we celebrated it at my brothers place once, and at the in-laws once.... but that's about it.

Food, food and food

The Jul dinner (remember, this is december 24:th, not 25:th!) is a very traditional thing, involving ham, pickled herring, smoked salmon, potatoes, meatballs, mini-sausages, and many other things, most importantly perhaps the Schnapps! ;)

And the most important thing is....

The most important event on Swedish christmas, the Holy Event, around which everything else circles, occurs at 15.00 hours on christmas eve, Swedish national television, channel #1.

It's DONALD DUCK.

Yes, you read that right. Disneys whacked out duck is the most important thing of all on a Swedish Christmas.

Every year, a special "Disney Christmas Special" is broadcast, and even though it's just a medley of pieces from well known films, everyone watches. Religiously.




WHY, I hear you scream?

Well, as with all religious traditions origin... happenstance.

'tis like this:

TV was adopted fairly early in Sweden, officially launched in 1956 but actually begun in 1954, but it was a "serious" medium, for news, and other things. Maybe some light frivolity now and again, but very much a "important" thing... especially in the early early super early days where there were no channels (just "the TV") and perhaps two broadcasts a week.

So when Swedish television one christmas on a lark back in the 60's to purchas and show a Disney "christmas special" on Christmas eve. This would be, most likely, the first time a Swedish child saw actual cartoons outside the context of going to an expensive movie theater! It was a tremendous sucess, children loved it, and parents demanded it be repeated the next year. So it was. And again.

So imagine growing up in a world where you only see actual Disney cartoons once a year, unless you go to the theater. Yes, there was, when I grew up, some "Childrens Programming"... mostly wierd Chech puppetry, or some really really screwed up stuff like "Vilse i Pannkakan" (= "lost in the pancake"), a TV show that many adults my age have recurring nightmares of, and many cite as the main thing "ruining their childhood forever".

Alas, here we have this world where Donald Duck is seen once a year. The tradition was so strong, that when the "ferdinand the bull" segment was edited out one year, the outrage was so high that I think even the King had to go in and fix it ;)

This "Donald Duck is Christmas" is slowly waning now, though, and will perhaps die out with my generation, because honestly, my kids have all the films in multiple formats, and why should they set down seeing a bad sixties transfer of "highlight clips" from films they can just pop in their DVD player? It makes little sense to them... still... they are being indoctrinated by us adults that "Christmas Is Donald Duck" and who knows, it may stick with them too... we'll let the future decide that.

So be aware, if you meet a Swede, that when they think about the important things on Christmas, they are Donald Duck, Food, Family, and presents. If you poke a Swede for a while, he may remember "Oh yeah, it was something about that Jesus guy, wasn't it?"

Of course, if he said that he would be wrong because the Jul festival predates Christianity, and we are just treating it the "real and original" way. ;)

/Z

Satanism and Sicilian Saints

When December 13:th rolls around, Swedes go into Lucia mode. What happens is that women in nightgowns (plus some sidekicks like ginger-bread men and little santas) come singing, and one particular chick has candles in her hair and is "Lucia".




This Bizzare custom is very strange, and it is actually so strange that even us Swedes don't really know where the heck we came up with it exactly.

Actually one big thing almost every year on TV is some historian trying to untangle the mess that is our "Lucia" festivity, which all come back to maybe it being originally a pagan or even satanistic ritual originally, since there are lots of word with the prefix Lusse- connected to the festivity ("Lussebulle", a special type of bun, e.t.c.), which sounds bit more "Lucifer" than "Lucia" plus is said to preceed the Christening of Sweden.

The real why's of how a particular Saint became important to Sweden is something you'd have to Google for coz frankly, I don't have a clue.

No Lucia festivity is complete without the song "Sankta Lucia". However this song choice has two particular quirks:

First, the actual original italian song is actually about the village of Lucia, and has nothing at all to do with the Swedish lyrics in any way, shape or form (which talks about a chick "bearing light", coming 11 days before Christmas saying, "yo, folks, X-mas is coming")

The second is that nobody thinks of this as a religious song per so. Now, while the title means "Saint Lucia", the word "Sankta" for "Sainted" is so baroque and ancient (the normal Swedish word would be "Helgon") that most people don't even understand it's meaning, and actually think it's the chicks name. If you ask any Swedish child what "Sankta" means, they'll say "It's Lucias first name".

For us, Lucia is about a "chick bearing light" that comes 11 days before X-mas, and... passes out ginger snaps. And coffee.

An amusing detail is that they play out the Lucia festivity early for the Nobel Prize winners (the Prize is always given Dec 10:th) and it is always funny to see their reaction, noted was literature Prize winnder Dario Fo's comment "I've died and gone to heaven". He probably never had a bunch of Swedish blondes in nightgown coming into his bedroom in the morning with coffee before.

To us, it happens every December 13:th.

I'll write a little more about this bizzarro event later.

/Z

Swedes - the Advent Children

Sunday was "1st Advent" in Sweden. That's the 4:th sunday before Christmas.

Swedes have a bizzare relationship to Christmas. It's one of the biggest "feasts" of the year to a Swede, but Christ is not the main character (we get to who is later).

Christmas is a not a religious feast to most Swedes. This is because everyone stole our Midvinterblot anyway!!!.

Yes, the Christmas you all celebrate is our old pagan viking mid-winter party! And just because some guy comes walking into our country with a big X we aren't going to change our partying habits! ;)

Yes, there is a certain (limited) amount of lip-service paid to "Christ", and some church-related stuff, like "julottan", which is going really stupidly early to church on Christmas morning. Mostly the older generations actually do that, and not so much for religious reasons as due to "it's what you do on Christmas morn'".

Thats us in a nutshell, Swedes, we do stuff coz "that's what you do", not due to some massive underlying belief of some sort. Tradition.

And for Christmas we have a lot of tradition, because it's a mess. We are going to come to some of that later.

The first "christmas related" thing (apart from putting up some early christmas decorations, like the christmas curtains) is the four-candle "Adventsljusstake", i.e. a special candle-holder-thingamabob which takes 4 candles, and for each sunday-before-xmas-eve (we celebrate Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day, btw) we light one candle.

So first one,
then next week two,
then the next week three
and the week after that all four

...and just like those sentences generate a staggered appearance, so does the "Adventsljusstake", on Christmas Eve, if there is anything left of the 1st candle, you'll see a staircase looking contraption with a really short candle, a slightly longer, another even longer, and one longer than that.



Bizarre.

And we are big on candles.

I read an article by a Swede that was living temporarily in Japan and invited some japanese friends for a Christmas dinner. They had lit the entire aparment with candles, and the Japanese came in and wonder "oh, is the power out? Want help finding the fusebox". LOL. Also the Japanese guy saw the two lite candles in the "Adventsljusstake" and took out his lighter and lit the remaining two! TEH BLASPHEMER!

More Bizzare Swedish Christmas ritual to follow, next week.... when we mix Satanism with a Sicilian Saint, and setting fire to hair with Ginger Snaps.

Stay Tuned.

/Z

Tradition: 1 God: 0

Swedes love tradition. We really really love tradition. We value our traditions over most things. You could even say tradition is the closest we have to religion.

For example, we baptise our children in church, almost all of us. Not because we believe a word the priest says, it's not important. It's a gathering of family to celebrate the new life, and if anything, is seen as a "name giving cermony", since in Swedish the word "baptised" has become practically synonymous with "naming" something.

I am always amused how American atheists try to distance themselves from church so vehemently, to the points of not getting married, or making sure the ceremony is totally secular, or whatnot.

To us, this is not a contradiction. Many are Atheists, and still many of those marry in church, because that's where you traditionally get married! It's a beautiful building, a great place to do it, so why not? (Of course, those in areas with crappy old smelly churches or ugly boring "modern" churches might disagree )

Yep, we really love tradition. We love it so much we latch on to even the most bizzare ones.

For example, we always had a "day of all saints" here where you traditionally light candles on graves. No, not for any religious reason, it's a tradition. This is the holiday which has been bastardized into "Halloween" in most other countries, and waddaya know, in the last 5-10 years, Halloween has crept into our area too. But on the day after. So now we have two traditions: First light candles on the grave... and then the day after do the "halloween" thing.

Kids love it coz they get to "trick and treat", which WE traditionally do at easter, where people dress up as witches and go house to house to ask for candy. Yes, at easter, all withces fly to Blåkulla on their broom, with their cat. Y'all knew that, didn't ya? Another Swedish tradition.

And yet we don't believe in it. We treat traditions as traditions, nothing else.

But that's a topic for another day.

/Z

Swedes and Religion

Swedes and Religion, what an interesting subject.

What other country can sport the world record of a 85% population of Atheists according to research, and yet have 90-95% actually members of the state Lutheran church?

Freaky, we are, in our relation to Church and Religion.

I'm not sure I know anyone who isn't an Atheist. I know this sound alien to an Americans ears, but it's true. It may be that my mother in law possibly have some form of belief, but I'm not sure. It's not something you ever discuss, really.

That's not because I am a particularily odd person, that's how it is over here.

Yet I am a member of the Lutheran state church. I was baptised in church, I was married in church, and I will be buried in church. And I want that. I desire that. I'd fight for my right to do that.

Because I love our church.

Now don't faint. I'm talking about the building.

Our local church is a beautiful, cathedral like 16:th century building built on top of a 10:th century foundation. The building oozes history. I love it!



(Sometimes when I see US "mom and pop" churches on corners, I want to whip out a pic of "my" church, and in the voice of Mick 'Crocodile' Dundee say "That's not a church, this is a church")

It's a fantastic locale. I'm member of the state church because that means you pay church tax (some tiny half percent) and I am proud to pay to keep this building standing and in shape. I am proud of our history. I love our church.

But I don't believe in God.

Frankly, I think the priest that married myself and my wife doesn't either. But that's a topic for another day.

Stay tuned...

/Z

Atheism In Sweden (re)opens at BlogSpot

This Blog used to live over at infidelguy.com but now that he hung up his proverbial hat, I had to move it here.

I'll re-post the old posts here, when I find time.

/Z