Finnish Christmas vs. American Christmas
|
Finland
|
U.S.
|
|
| Day of main Christmas celebrations |
Christmas Eve
|
Christmas Day
|
| Mood |
Solemn, peaceful, |
Boisterious, commercial, religious
|
| What to watch? |
Announcing the Christmas peace in Turku
|
Football
|
| Parades on TV? |
No
|
Yes
|
| What to drink? |
Glögi
|
Egg Nog
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| When do you get your presents? |
Christmas Eve evening
|
First thing Christmas morning
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| How to get your presents? |
Santa delivers them personally
|
Santa comes in the night while you’re sleeping and drops them off
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| Stockings? |
No
|
Yes
|
| How to tell Santa what you want for Christmas? |
Write a letter
|
Sit on Santa’s lap at the mall
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| What does Santa bring you if you’ve been naughty? |
Twigs
|
Coal
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| Where does Santa live? |
Finland (Korvatunturi, Lapland)
|
North Pole
|
| Santa has a walking stick? |
Yes
|
No
|
| Flying reindeer? |
No
|
Yes
|
| When to put up the Christmas tree? |
Christmas Eve, or day before
|
Anytime after Thanksgiving
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| Christmas tree lights |
Large, fake or real white candles
|
Lots and lots of twinkly colored lights
|
| Christmas lights outside the house? |
Moderate amount
|
Must go way overboard
|
| Decorations |
Straw goat, himmeli, lit stars in the window,
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Fake Santa in the yard, fake candles in the window, nativity scene
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| Christmas Dinner |
Ham, fish, carrot/rutabaga/potato casserole, rosolli, joulutorttu (Christmas pastries)
|
Ham and turkey and roast beef, stuffing, cranberry sauce
|
| Day after Christmas? |
Boxing Day, national holiday
|
Back to work, start thinking about Valentine’s Day
|
A bit of trivia: the Coca-Cola Santa was drawn by an illustrator named Sundblom, who was an American Finn. He’s responsible - although only partly - for the fact that our santas are clad in Coke colors and are preferably fat. Earlier santas were grey and thin … and still in the 19th century they didn’t usually give presents but begged for them.
The business idea of placing Santa in Korvatunturi dates back at least to the 70s. Although Sweden, Norway, France etc are competing fiercely it seems that at least the Britts and Japanese believe - often - that Santa lives in Finland. (Actually Santa is not a real person, but don’t tell it to anyone.)
Comment by Tomi — Sun, Dec 25th, 2005 @ 4:40 pm
> When to put up the Christmas tree?
> Christmas Eve, or day before
If this were true, why would there by people selling Christmas trees way before Christmas. It’s not like people would be putting the Christmas trees to storage rooms or anything. Sometime in December is probably closer to the truth.
> Flying reindeer?
> No
I always believed that the reindeers flied.
Comment by Petteri Räty — Sun, Dec 25th, 2005 @ 7:48 pm
Oh come on… everybody knows what Santa lives in North Pole, Canada! But since it’s the hollidays and I dont want to offend anybody i’ll say this : The American Santa lives in North Pole, Canada while the European Santa lives in Lapland, Finland. I heard these two were twin brothers… anybody can confirm the rumor??
Comment by Sam — Sun, Dec 25th, 2005 @ 8:12 pm
I guess the purchase time of the Christmas tree here depends on when you want to vacuum the needles.
“joulutorttu (Christmas pastries)”
My workplace cafeteria had “Christmas tart” in the english menu. Could have one of those with the afternoon coffee.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Sun, Dec 25th, 2005 @ 8:15 pm
Petteri, we have always bought our tree days before we take it inside, I’ve thought many others do too.
Didn’t know North Pole was in Canada.
Comment by Anna-Leena — Sun, Dec 25th, 2005 @ 8:29 pm
“The business idea of placing Santa in Korvatunturi dates back at least to the 70s.”
The idea of placing Joulupukki in Korvatunturi dates back at 1927, when Markus-setä said so in the radio.
The business idea is more to place Santa in Rovaniemi and other charter flight tourist resorts at the same time =)
Comment by Kekkonen — Sun, Dec 25th, 2005 @ 9:30 pm
Well Saint Nicholas a.k.a Santa Claus was actually from Turkey. I dunno how it got shifted to the North Pole.
Comment by Nokia Guy — Sun, Dec 25th, 2005 @ 11:31 pm
We get our tree a few days before Christmas as well, but only bring it inside on the 23rd or 24th. We keep it in the garage till then.
Comment by hobbes — Sun, Dec 25th, 2005 @ 11:39 pm
I used to work at a Christmas tree farm in Decembers. We’d open up the first weekend after Thanksgiving. The first weekend and last weekend weren’t all that busy. The two weekends inbetween were super busy. Setting up your Christmas tree one or two days before Christmas was unheard of.
Comment by Phil — Mon, Dec 26th, 2005 @ 12:03 am
So which version do you like best?
Comment by Green — Mon, Dec 26th, 2005 @ 12:53 am
So which version do you like best?
I think the Jews got the best setup with the whole 8 days of gifts thing.
Comment by Phil — Mon, Dec 26th, 2005 @ 12:59 am
No mention of Karjalan Paisti (sometimes referred in english as Three Meat Ragout, Three Meat Stew or just plain stew which it is for me) for Christmas dinner? A rather essential part of the Christmas meal round here atleast along Ham, Rosolli and casseroles.
Comment by Pete M. — Mon, Dec 26th, 2005 @ 11:25 am
Sant’a Corporate headquarters is in Alaska, for tax purposes. Image how much the Finnish Government would tax Santa for giving the whole world toys……
Christmas in Finland for me is a more socialist affair. We are doing sauna now. We are all going for a walk now. We will watch this now (one tv in the house instead of 6, and only four channels.)
They are both nice places to have Christmas. Greetings from the middle of the forest. This poart is called Mouhijarvi, Finland.
When is the EU going to bless this part of nowhere with free wifi?
Comment by Fred Fry — Mon, Dec 26th, 2005 @ 12:01 pm
Phil - do yanks really not get Boxing Day as a holiday? That’s harsh.
Comment by Toby — Mon, Dec 26th, 2005 @ 8:13 pm
Mood Finland Solemn, peaceful, ceremonial
Who are you trying to kid? Maybe 100 years ago or at the cemetary with all the candles and shit for that 5 minutes you are there. I mean, fortunately there aren’t any of the rediculous retards fighting over furbys and laptops and shit at 5am. However, i see nothing but christmas commercials for retail stores and products, ads in the paper (christmas sale this, specials for your christmas pleasure that) and decorations all over stores. And let’s not forget the 4 million people crammed into downtown Pori for the entire month of December - and they weren’t doing anything solemn or ceremonial, unless walking across the street with 800 bags and not even bothering to notice that there’s cars driving right at them is ceremonial.
Comment by gopha — Mon, Dec 26th, 2005 @ 8:57 pm
Phil - do yanks really not get Boxing Day as a holiday? That’s harsh.
It’s a big joke on Boxing Day to make fun of the Canadians and Brits for having a “Boxing” day. “What do they do, box on the holiday?? LOL!”
Comment by Phil — Mon, Dec 26th, 2005 @ 9:56 pm
It’s usually a big joke to make fun of Canadians every day.
Comment by gopha — Tue, Dec 27th, 2005 @ 2:11 am
Hey I saw that!! Lousy finns :p
Comment by Sam — Tue, Dec 27th, 2005 @ 9:46 pm
Reindeer fly as all things are possible with God. For infromation on Reindeer, and how Reindeer fly, pictures, a snack they just love and the wonders of Christmas go to Flying Reindeer Snack And How Santa’s Reindeer Fly.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAVE A SHININ YEAR [0__} : : : : +
Comment by Taimm Rich — Wed, Dec 28th, 2005 @ 3:21 am
Antti:
My workplace cafeteria had “Christmas tart†in the english menu. Could have one of those with the afternoon coffee.
What would your wife say?
Anna-Leena:
Didn’t know North Pole was in Canada.
The magnetic North Pole is, or at least very recently was (it is moving to the NW at an accelerating speed, predicted to reach Siberia in about 50 years)
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Thu, Dec 29th, 2005 @ 8:55 pm
“What would your wife say?”
Well, considering it was not the innocent bakery product, I would be eating and sleeping on the parking lot. The couch in the White House is peanuts. She might be left-wing, but on these issues, all women seem to be bloody conservatives
(OK, OK, men are too considering the amount of “shotgun divorces” around here.)
Kind of reminds me of one old guy back home. He had bad pneumonia for the third day and as it was in the 40’s, everyone was 100% certain, he was going to die. The pastor had already visited him for the last sacraments. As his condition was still deteriorating, he got scared, that he didn’t confess all his sins to the pastor and so he confided to his wife, that several kids in a couple of neighbours were actually his.
The only problem was, that he survived the pneumonia. They were old-fashioned people, so the divorce was out of question, but for their remaining 40 years, the wife spoke only few words to him and they never had meals together. Speaking about family holidays…
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Sun, Jan 1st, 2006 @ 11:52 pm
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Comment by insurance life mortgage policy term — Fri, Mar 24th, 2006 @ 5:43 pm
I was directed to this site by an associate that lives in Finland. We have been enjoying learning about each other’s holidays. I would like to make a correction to the information about the US celebration of Christmas:
1. How do you tell Santa what you want for Christmas? Many children write to Santa, this is probably more prevalant than the shopping mall concept.
2. Christmas lights outside the house. The vast majority of people in the US have simple lights around the edge of the roof of their home.
3. The day after Christmas is usually not a work day for most people and most people are not immediately thinking of Valentines day but rather the joy of welcoming a new year.
Overall, your article made the US sound extremely commercial. I am sure that we are more commercial than Finland however we are not as extreme as stated in this article. Many people go to Church on Christmas eve to celebrate the birth of Jesus and give thanks.
Comment by Kristine (an American) — Mon, Nov 27th, 2006 @ 7:44 pm
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Comment by Anonymous — Sat, Apr 28th, 2007 @ 10:17 pm
“Christmas Dinner - Ham, fish, carrot/rutabaga/potato casserole, rosolli, joulutorttu (Christmas pastries)”, or Yank version of “Ham and turkey and roast beef, stuffing, cranberry sauce”
Christmas Dinner in Australia is usually seafood and eaten outdoors because it’s too damned hot for anything else! LOL How we long for a cold-ish Christmas….
Comment by SweetPetunia — Sat, Oct 20th, 2007 @ 5:51 am
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