Stories about Grand Children

The best time of the year is here!
Merry Christmas!



For all *children* out there it is a very exciting time right now. In my family we are indead Christmas-Freaks. Starting the 1st of December every year. Or the first Sunday of the 4 before Christmas.

That Sunday is a special one, when the first dekorations are coming up everywhere. In all windows there are special *candelabra´s* ( electric) spreading their lights.


And we sit together the whole family, making the wishing lists ready. Yes, we are still doing this, even if my children are grown ups now. And we light the first candle of 4 together while having a great time.

The next big day for us up here is the 13th of December. That is * Lucia-dagen*, the Lucia-Day. The Swedish Lucia has nothing to do with the Italian legend of Sankta Lucia. A Lucia is a young girl, dressed in a white gown and with a crown with 6 candles on her head.
She comes in the early morning together with her company of special dressed up friends. They wake up the families singing special songs and treat them with coffee and a special bunn for the day.

Every town have its own Lucia with company and we also have one elected to represent Sweden for the full year to come. She gets to travell all around the world to visit places with Swedish communities.

After the Lucia day the 13th it gets really busy. It is so much to take care of. We have the big baking day, the big cleaning up your home day, the goingshopping for Christmas gifts day and finally the big cooking special Christmas food day.

Below is my favorite recipe for the big Christmas Ham.


I use a 5 kilo fresh ham.
Without the bone and already salted.
Starting with letting it stay in cold water for about 1 hour.
To take away some of the salt
I put on the oven to 175 C
I don´t boil the ham , I bake it in the oven.
Wrapping it in aluminum foil.
It takes almost 6 hours to bake it.
One hour per kilo however I want a dry ham so I leave it a little longer. When it´s done I take away the net and almost all grease.
Mix 1 egg with some sugar and mustard and put that on top of the ham,
dusting some dryed bread over.
Back in the oven for about 15 minutes to get a nice colour.
Done, Bon Apetit !

Here in Sweden it is the 24th of December that is the big day, Christmas Eve. Starting early in the morning while it´s still dark outside with the family breakfast. Some of my children are still coming to be part of that. White porridge, with a dust of cinnamon, slices of the big ham on dark sirupbread, herring *all sorts*,and other special swedish dishes :-) After breakfast we get to open one small gift, nothing special, it is just a habit from when they were small

Early in the afternoon we all sit to watch the special Disney show on telly. Oh well, I usually miss that since I have to start cooking. But for a few years now we get together with one of my daughters in her home for Christmas dinner so that´s where I will be to help her with all the food. The others will join later.All together we will be 14 people. (Our oldest daughter with family we will see the day after.)

Dinner is always ready around 5 PM. I suppose our dinner is almost as the Thanksgiving dinner, sometimes with turkey but most of all we have that special made big Christmas Ham. Mmmmmmmmm, I just love that! And the Swedish Smörgåsbord!

By now the 3 grandkids are very excited and waiting for the big moment when there will be a loud bang on the frontdoor. Santa is coming with all the gifts!! Yes, Swedish children get to meet Santa. He comes in and sits in the livingroom and they have to get the gifts from his hand, one by one. This is a very exciting moment for them. I wonder what they would think if they knew that it is their own mother dressed up as Santa. We always tell a story why she has to go out for a while and so far they belive us. She does this sooo well, that infact she becomes Santa for all of us.

It takes a while to help them opening the gifts and to make it last and not be over at once, they have to open one by one. Also an old family tradition. We usually are back home at 10 PM and then we get to open our gifts, that has been waiting under the Christmas tree all day. Now we are 8 people left sitting together. Again we open one by one so that is also going on for a few hours. The day after we will visit out oldest daughter and there will be a Santa for her kids as well. You could say we are making the most of 2 days lol.

A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year I wish all of you.

Margareta Hultgren /Grandma Maggie
Myrtuvevagen 63
46167 Trollhattan,Sweden

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