hyvää joulua! (Merry Christmas!)

the Christmas tree (joulupuu)
see all photos »

Christmas in Finland had many similarities with Christmas in Canada.  It was spent with family, there was good food,  joy,  snow,  presents.  etc.  Of course it didn't feel like Christmas so much to me.  This is not because I didn't have a good Christmas - Christmas spirit is attached to your earlier Christmas traditions.  If there isn't the music,  the people,  the familiar sights that you see every Christmas,  it just feels less like Christmas.  However, I had a really awesome Christmas and I'm really excited to bring back those new traditions.

Ristiinan kirkko (Ristiina's church)
see all photos »

Ristiina had a lot of special Christmas activities throughout the month of December.  The most popular was singing Christmas carols.  I went various times to Mikkeli to sign and hear Christmas carols.  Finnish Christmas carols are all very beautiful and different.  As can be expected they are also quite melancholic.  For example,  there is one in particular that talks about a bird found on the windowsill by a poor boy. The bird was wounded and dying and the boy saw him out into death.  I don't know what this has to do with Christmas expect maybe hope and kindness.  There were also, of course, more universal Christmas songs such as O,Holy Night  and Silent Night and Jingle Bells.  The kind of song that has been translated a million times into a million languages.  Mostly,  I heard them sung in Finnish but there were some occasions where they were in English,  German,  or French.

Koristaan jouolupuu (Decorating the tree)
see all photos »

So I often went to sing in Churches.  In Mikkeli for example,  they had an event where people came to say a passage from the Bible in different languages.  I was really impressed in the amount of people from different countries.  Coming from one of the most multicultural countries ijn the world,  Finland didn't seem very multicultural at all when I came.  However,  at this event people from Sudan,  China,  Spain,  and Germany were present.

hautausmaa(The cemetary)
see all photos »

I also went to a special event in Ristiina hosted by the orphanage.  It is a sort of pilgrimage re-enacting the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.  It started from a Church (which used to be a place where they smoked the years harvest to get the bugs out hence the walls were very black) and ended in one of the orphanage's buildings where glögi,  coffee,  and tea were offered.  I went with mylast host mother Annuka and her ´SPanish friend Satu.  Actually Satu was born ion Finland but she's lived in Spain for a while - somewhere near Barcelona I think.  As soon as I met Satu she radiated Spanish culture - she talked fast and with a certain joviality and she used her hands alot when she spoke.  She had heard from Annukka that I speak SPanish.  Therefore that evening was a vry tiring one for me as Satu spoke to me in Spanish (which I hadn't spoken for several months so it was getting rusty)  and also in Finnish (which I am only just starting to get a grip on).  She switched the languages constantly to a point where I understood what she was saying but I couldn't make the difference between Spanish and Finnish.  It was a very strange experience as Spanish and Finnish don't really resemble one another.  The evening was very dark and cold and the trajectory was outside in the woods.  I believe the children of the orphanage were inacting many of the parts such as angels,  shepherds,  etc.  and the staff were also helping alot.  At the end,  we had to pass through a Roman gate and proe that we were from Bethlehem.  It was really fun and different from anything I'd done before.

Joulupukki (Santa Claus)
see all photos »

In case you're wondering,  the orphanage has several children between the ages of 2 and 18.  Either their parents died or could not afford to take care of them. There is always also the sad case where the child was taken away from his or her parents by the authorities due to illtreatment.  However the orphanage seems like a good place for them.  Some of those that I met from the orphanage have gone on to University and are leading very good careers in such domains as architecture.  But the most telltale thing is that almost every child who has been to the orphanage returns every Christmas.  I think they feel they have family there.  So it is not a horror orphanage where children are almost better off in the streets.

Christmas dacorations
see all photos »

The Christmas lights and decorations came as a surprise to me.  Finns don't necessarily put up a lot of Christmas lights - mostly just in the trees in front of their house.  However typical CHristmas decorations are made of straw and are called "himmeli".  They look like pendulums made out of cubes or triangular prisms - the biggest on the top followed by smaller and smaller prisms (depending on the size).  They also make stars and patterns out of straw and tree roots.  Most of these are made by hand - not bought.  Here I thought that Christmas was going to look the same - I was wrong.  Also it is customary to putn up candles in the windows just like for Independance day throughout the advent season.  Chandeleres are hung outside and inside and candle holders that look like the hanuka candle holder are put just outside the window.  I was really confused about that at first - I was surprised at how many Jewish famlies were in our neighbourhood until my own host family put the same candle holder on their window.

preparing the Christmas dinner
see all photos »

Christmas itself begins on the 24th of December here in Finland.  The morning is spent getting the Christmas tree inside the house,  decorating it,  cooking,  baking,  and cleaning up like maniacs.  At noon the real festivities begin with a Christmas lunch consisting of joulupuuro.  Joulupuuro is a rice porridge eaten with cinamon and sugar.  It is absolutely delicious.  I believe in the days when rice was only grown in Asia and not exported to Finland,  they made the porridge out of barley.  However,  at the beginning of the 20th century when rice was available in Finland,  it was considered quite a luxury.  Because people could only afford it once a year,  it became a Christmas tradition to replace the barley.  Much like oranges were a Christmas tradition in North America.  We also ate ham which is the traditional Finnish Christmas dinner - not turkey.  After the lunch its time to just relax and spend time with the family (though I was surprised that no one at all was outside at this time despite the fact that the sun was shining for the first time in about three months).  At three,  my host mother and I walked to Church while my host brother and father took the car.  The service was very different from what I'm used to.  I didn't know that one could have a mass without communion in the Lutheran Church.  Turns out that you can and that communion is only held on special occasions (if Christmas isn't special enough).  But I'm not complaining - it meant that the service lasted thirty minutes rather than fourty five.  Even if the service was in Finnish,  I didnät get bored because the Church was so different from what I'm used to and so old.  I just spent my time looking around and noticing small things like emblems marked 1772 written in "old Finnish" therefore completely indecipherable to me.  In place of the Catholic crucifix behind the altar there was a painting depicting Jesus blessing a child and surounded by other children.  The Lutheran Church gives Jesus a much more human look than the Catholic Church.  The Church was also surounded by paintings of the founders of Ristiina and old Swedish Royalty.  This also surprised me because it seems as though the founders or the royalty have been given a higher place closer to God than the "peasant".  However,  the paintings have probably been there for many centuries and therefore,  it has great historical value to keep them there in the Church.  Also,  the podium where the priest gave his homeli (or whatever its called in Finnish or Lutheran terms - in any case, when the priest makes his "speech" to the people) was reached by  a staircase.  Whether this is for symbolic purposes or just so that everbody can see him,  I don't know.   So,  how could I possibly be bored with all of these things to notice and ponder upon? As we walked outside of the Church after the service,  I noticed a man in uniform standing guard beside a little cemetary which looked like a military cemetary.  My host mother explained to me that every year,  a soldier stands at attention during the Christmas service to pay homage to those who died in battle.  My host father has done this twice I think.

AFter the service my host mother and I walked home but we went through the cemetary. It is tradition to,  at Christmas time,  place a candle beside the tomb of your loved ones at Christmas time.  It somehow makes sense to join life and death in that way.  So we walked passed the foundations of te old castle Brahelinna and took a walk through the lighted cemetary.

When we got home it was again a family reunion timewhere we drank glögi,  watched a Christmas special of A Christmas Carol by Charles Díckens,  lighted some candles and just talked about everything and nothing.  It was very nice and will be one of my favourite Christmas memories.  At around six we satt down to Christmas dinner.  It consisted of ham (again),  carrot casserols,  cabbage casserol and potato casserol,  all kinds of salted,  smoked and marinated fish (mostly herring and salmon),  rye bread,  potato salad,  beet salad with whipped cream,  and also pickles and pickled carrots.  We ate until we were going to burst.  The desert was a fruit pudding much like the English plum pudding - but with apricots,  apples,  berries,  and plums.  This was eaten with sweetened whipped cream.  All in all,  a very good Christmas meal.  HOwever,  by seven o'clock,  my eleven year old host brother was getting a little too excited.  Perhaps it was all the sugar or maybe just that Santa was due to visit at anytime.  In Finland,  every family with a child hires a Santa.  Our family hired my host dad to be our Santa.  It was really quite hilarious.  He wore a red coat over many many pillows,  and a Santa mask.  He also carried a huge bag full of presents - which never made it under the tree.  He stayed and talked a while and a few minutes after he left,  Anssi,  my host dad,  came into the house wondering how come he'd missed Santa's visit yet again this year.   What a fun time we had.  Also,  I've never had so many presents at Christmas in my whole life.  I realized that I'd come to know about three times as many people as I knew before my exchange.  I therefore had many more Christmas cards and presents to make.  However I didn' think that it would also be reversed and I would receive just as much as I had given.  In fact I though it was going to be a year where I wouldn't get much.  And that didn't bother me at all so,  when Santa gave me the pile that he did,  I was really genuinly surprised.

I was very happy to see the reactions of my host family with the presents I gave them.  I even got the opportunity to see the reaction of my real family in Canada over msn when I called them the next day (French Canadian Christmas is spent during the night of the 24th to the 25th so I could call right during the celebration).  I called home at nine in the morning so it was midnight in Calgary.  After openning the presents,  we spent several hours playing around with them and,  of course, going to sauna.  A Finnish Christmas is never complete without sauna (nothing Finnish is ever complete without sauna).  In the end we went to bed at around midnight.

The morning of Christmas,  like I said,  I called home.  After that we just stayed inside the whole day,  eating more,  looking at our gifts and just hanging around.  The Christmas celebration in Finland is often spent within the family.  Christmas day - not a soal was outside (surprising to me again).  My host mother explained that people just didn't do anything on Christmas but I went for a walk anyway - the sun was shining again. On Boxing ay,  contrary to North America,  nothing was opened.  There are no sales on Boxing Day - that is the day that people get together with friends and extended family.  SO we went to Kouvola for another Christmas Diner very much like the one we had on Christmas Eve excpet that Seija made Karelian Stew.

That was basically my Christmas this year.  I'll write again soon to let you know how my New Year's party went in Kuopio.