en svensk jul

We spent Christmas in Sweden and it was wonderful. Our daughter-in-law is Swedish and her parents very generously invited us all to stay in a red house in a clearing in the woods where an owl hooted at night and deer peeped out of the dark, and there was the possibility of a moose mooching past.

[a typical window around 4pm]

Sweden in winter in a small town makes you fall back on fairy tale imagery, especially when the sun sets at 14.50 and does not reappear until 9.00 and the darkness is so black and all-encompassing that you find yourself sleeping longer and longer until you turn into a Rip Van Winkle tribute act.

Light is precious and there are candelabra in most windows at this time of year (and many real candles inside, too), creating spots of soft and welcoming light, signalling life and warmth within, a gentle, twinkling contrast to the outside world of silver birches, pines, firs, painted houses, red barns, huge semi-frozen lakes, and the vast darkness which invariably makes me think of Robert Frost’s poems, Wordsworth’s ‘Prelude’, and Carl Larsson’s paintings.

[‘Brita with Candles and Apples’ (1901) by Carl Larsson]

I read in a book I bought that when he and Karin returned to Sundborn from Paris, Carl Larsson was frustrated when it was too cold in winter to paint outside, so Karin suggested he paint what was inside: objects, furniture, flowers, family, interior scenes. This, of course, resulted in some of the most beautiful, delightful, domestic images ever painted, and gave rise to a whole new style of interior decoration. Here is Brita, his daughter, dressed for the Christmas holiday as the Norse goddess Idun (the image was used for the title page of the 1901 Christmas edition of Idun) and holding the all-important candles and a basket of apples.

Oh yes, apples. We had deliciously clean and fresh-tasting apple juice made from the fruit of the trees just metres from our little red house, and I was reminded of the importance of storing and preserving fruit for long, cold winters. I particularly love the culture of berries in Sweden, the sweetness of bilberries (blåbär - often mistakenly translated as ‘blueberries’) which make a delicious crumble, the pale amber of sought-after cloudberries (the slightly less whimsical-sounding hjortron in Swedish) in special-treat jam, and tart red lingonberries (lingon) to go with meatballs.

[saffron bun, Uppsala]

Swedish winter/Christmas traditions are maintained with a lightness of touch, so to someone who finds the general overkill in the UK somewhat oppressive, they are infinitely preferable. Candles in windows, jam on the table, coffee at regular intervals, pickled herring, a welcome glögg, all are easy to do and maintain, and not heavy or stressful.

And there are saffron buns, bright yellow like substitute sunshine. Sweden imports a lot of saffron which is consequently cheaper than here, and generous packs of fresh yeast are widely sold in supermarkets, so lots of sweet buns including my absolute favourite kardemummabullar/cardomom buns are easy to make. I’m also very much in favour of keeping the celebrations limited to a Christmas Eve dinner (the big event) with leftovers on the 25th, not to mention having the local supermarket open on Christmas Day selling - whisper it - bunches of Swedish-grown tulips, as well as the very nice cafe which was full of locals enjoying yet more coffee.

We also found out about the traditional TV moment at 3pm on Christmas Eve when several million Swedes watch not a King or Queen’s speech but Donald Duck cartoons. Really.

We had nice long walks, admired lakes and churches and painted houses,

[‘Still Life with Amaryllis’ (1949) by Olle Hjortzberg]

and the many perfectly timed amaryllis on windowsills and tables (another tradition I could embrace).

[tapestry depicting important events in Uppsala’s history incl the great fire of 1702 and the redesign of the cathedral towers]

Besides all this and reading, lounging, eating, drinking, and playing Big Boggle and The Traitors (extremely noisy and entertaining when you have enough people to accuse of murder with no grounds whatsoever), we roused ourselves sufficiently to take the double-decker train to Uppsala.

[Proust in Swedish - I was looking for Vol 1 for my small collection in various languages, but it was missing and it seems no-one in Uppsala gets any further]

It’s small, historic, picturesque, has an excellent old railway station (now a brasserie), more fine buns and coffee, a good bookshop, a nice and very busy yarn shop, a huge pink castle above the city,

[if Orla Kiely designed stained glass]

and a seriously beautiful Cathedral (built C13 to C15). It is the largest in Sweden and is now one of my all-time favourites: red brick on the outside, pale, elegant, slender, and unbelievably tall on the inside, with a series of pale patterned stained glass windows,

and some superb C20 tapestries about which I can find very little information (the vast history and range of weaving in Sweden are something to be explored on future visits).

[Anna-Lisa Odelqvist-Kruse’s three-part tapestry ‘From Darkness into Light’ (mid-70s) in the Finsta Chapel]

Many of the cathedral’s surfaces are covered with narrative or decorative medieval and C20 wall paintings, like huge versions of the murals in Carl Larsson’s house or in the fabulous decorated farmhouses of Hälsingland.

And it was good to discover that there’s active Beatles appreciation in small towns in Sweden, although the photo The Grand Old Softies have used may just contravene advertising standards. I got my own Christmas fix by watching Beatles ‘64, something I could happily turn into my own Christmas tradition instead of Donald Duck.

Mostly, though, it was a family Christmas made all the more magical by the presence of a baby and his little face appearing out of the morning darkness at our bedroom window. A lovely way to start the day and to end the year.

Happy Sunday!