Twas the night before Christmas

Christmas in Sweden is mainly celebrated on Christmas Eve as opposed to celebrating on Christmas Day as you do in pretty much the rest of the world.

So tonight we were invited by Grandma Gertrud and Roland to a 'uppesittarkväll', which is basically a 'night before the big night' celebration where you eat lots of good food and sweets, drink mulled wine and other beverages, maybe sample the newly roasted Christmas ham, watch 'uppesittarkväll-specials' on the TV and just hang out and have a good time.

Let me tell you; they went all in on the goodies tonight and we were treated to seveal different crust based delicacies, crepes, wine and sweets. I think I speak for most of us when I say that we rolled from the dinner table to the couch!

Ethan had a great time playing with his aunties and Bamse and Chippen, two out of the family's four four-legged members. Tonight he went to bed full, happy and maybe on a bit of a sugar high!

On the agenda for tomorrow: Fun in the snow, Christmas lunch, the annual Christmas Eve Disney special at 3pm (never ever phone anyone in Sweden between 3pm-4pm on Christnas Eve - we are busy watching Disney reruns!), a Christmas smörgåsbord and last but not least a visit from Santa.

For us, Santa's visit will definitely be interesting as E has never had a close encounter with Santa and we are not sure if he is going to a) help Santa hand out pressies, or b) freak out completely. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Personally I am very, very excited about celebrating a traditional Swedish Christmas with family (not to mention mom's Christmas food!) as we've been abroad on other Christmas adventures previous years, so this will also be another 'first' for us as a family. Stay tuned.