At last the 24th arrived and so it seemed like Christmas was finally here.
In the morning we did a bit of snow work out by the shoveling, and making a hole in the ice. Origionally we planned to have Christmas Eve sauna outside in the sauna house, but it turns out that a ferret had gotten into the house and torn everything apart.
It´s a tradition to eat rice porridge with a sauce of dried appricots and prunes for breakfast on Christmas.
I got to ride on a sled pulled by a snow mobile. It was so much fun, and my dream of riding up front on a snowmobile came true (if you know what I mean).
We dug a hole in the ice to get some water for the sauna house which we ended up not using. It was cool to make the hole using a huge metal stick, shaped like a spear. Walking on the ice can be very dangerous in some areas, but for the most part it is safe just about anywhere if there aren't major currents. The ice was several feet thick, and it's easy for animals like moose and deer to walk across and if it is thick enough, they make ice roads so that cars can drive over it.
Our Christmas tree all decorated. It was so tall and the stand was so small for it that it ended up falling over and puncturing a hole in the couch, but luckily that was the only damage and it wasn't so bad.
The table all set for our meal on Christmas eve. 'Dinner' here in Finland is usually around 4pm and then later in the evening around 7 or 8pm, there is an evening snack.
The traditional Finnish Christmas dishes all baked, set out on the table, and ready to be eaten.
The traditional foods are kinkku (ham), perunalaatikko ("laatikko" means "box" in Finnish, and it describes any dish cooked in a casserole/box-like dish. "Peruna" is "potatoes", so it's a form of mashed potatos), porkkanalaatikko ("porkkana" means "carrots," so it's a mashed and sliced carrot dish baked together), lanttulaatikko ("lanttu" is "rutabaga," so mashed rutabaga), then a salad with beetroot, apple slices, carrots, and some other veggies, and eaten with cream dyed pink from the beet juice. Also, brussel sprouts are eaten too.
It's also tradition for Santa (Joulupukki) to visit sometime during the day, because he is the one who delivers all of the presents.
About an hour after we had eaten, I was sitting in the livingroom with my host mom and two host sisters while everyone else was taking a nap. My host mom said something and pointed to the window and for some reason I was expecting to see the northern lights because it was already dark outside. Instead joulupukki was right outside the window and I nearly had a heart attack because it was so unexpected to see him. He then disapeared back into the darkness and then a few minutes later there was some knocking from the backdoor. We went and greeted joulupukki and he brought all of the presents in before having to leave. It was so funny to see him, but he was a bit forgetful, he couldn't even remember if he had come by reindeer or not. After a few minutes rest, he left again. It was so cool.
After Joulupukki left, everyone gathered in the livingroom and distributed presents and opened them all up. Most of the presents were from tontu (elf). It was a new way to celebrate Christmas Eve, and a great way too.
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