Since this year's autumn and winter collection "Nordic Aesthetics" is all about the Scandinavian countries, we would like to spread the Nordic Christmas spirit during Advent. In our content series "Nordic Christmas" we will introduce you to the Advent and Christmas traditions of the Scandinavian countries and share our favorite recipes so that you can celebrate your Christmas in a very hyggelig Scandi style!
Pikkujoulu – the pre-Christmas season in Finland
Pikkujoulu ("little Christmas") refers to the Finnish pre-Christmas period and the start of Christmas parties, some of which spread the Christmas spirit as early as November. These brighten up the mood in the dark season and get you in the mood for Advent with music, beautiful lighting and the traditional mulled wine (in Finland, Glögi)!
The first official holiday of the Christmas season is December 6th, with the “Itsenäisyyspäivä”. On this day, Finnish independence is celebrated and all those who died in the Winter War and during the Second World War are remembered. Candles are placed on windowsills and in houses everywhere, thus putting up the Christmas decorations at the same time.
Christ Child or Santa Claus? In Finland, no question!
Even though all Scandinavian countries would like to claim Santa Claus for themselves, the Finns are clearly convinced: the only true home of Joulupukki (Santa Claus) is without question a mysterious place called Korvatunturi (literally Ear Mountain) in Lapland.
However, his highly official office and Christmas post office are now located in Rovaniemi (a modern city in northern Finland), where he spends the whole year preparing for Christmas together with his reindeer and elves (the Tonttus)! You can even send your own Christmas wish lists to this post office and hope that he will make all your wishes come true despite all the Christmas stress: Santa Claus, Santa Claus's Main Post Office, 96930 Napapiiri, Finland.
Christmas: Not without a sauna session
In Finland, the Christmas holidays are mainly used to take it easy and spend time at home and in nature with friends and family. And what is a natural part of that? The sauna, of course. This tradition is also a must on Christmas Eve, either before Christmas dinner or at the end of the Christmas celebrations. Preferably with a hot cup of mulled wine and delicious gingerbread. Many families therefore rent a cabin or holiday home in the country for Christmas so that they can be even more closely connected to nature.
After the preparation, which involves a lot of sweating, the feast is on the agenda, which also plays an important role in the Christmas celebrations. The classic Finnish Christmas meal is roast pork, or the so-called Christmas ham. This is served together with various casseroles, salads and other side dishes. For dessert, there is the “Joulutorttu”, a classic Christmas pastry, for which you can find the recipe below.
After dinner, Christmas carols are sung and presents are unwrapped. If you want to sweat out the calories and the mulled wine straight away, you can finish off by going to the sauna and rolling around in the cold snow.
hyvää joulua! (Merry Christmas!)
Recipe idea: Joulutorttu - a delicious Christmas pastry
This fine pastry looks like little pinwheels and can be refined with any jam you like!
This is what you need for one portion:
200 g double cream cheese - 250 g Flour
- 125 g butter (soft)
- Salt
- ½ tsp cardamom (ground)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 tsp lemon peel (grated; organic)
- 2 egg yolks (size M)
- 150 g Raspberry jam (without seeds) (or other jam)
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons sugar
And here's how it works:
Step 1: Mix the cream cheese, flour, sugar, butter, salt, cardamom, cinnamon, lemon zest and egg yolk to form a smooth dough. Then chill the dough for 3 hours.
Step 2: Next, you need to heat the raspberry jam in a saucepan. Then stir the cornstarch with a little water until smooth and add to the jam. Bring to the boil and then allow to cool.
Step 3: Now roll out the dough on a floured surface into a square (5 mm). Then use a ruler to divide it into 9x9 cm squares, cut them to size and place them on two baking trays. Then cut the corners of each square 1 cm deep towards the middle.
Step 4: Now use a piping bag to pipe a dollop of raspberry jam into the middle of each square. Then whisk the egg yolk and coat the corners with egg. Finally, fold the four corners towards the middle like a pinwheel and press them into place.
Step 5: Bake the pastries one after the other in the oven at 180 degrees on the second rack from the bottom for 12-15 minutes and sprinkle with powdered sugar after they have cooled down. And then enjoy!
Author: Annika Seibel
