cimorene

Our adorable little house has enough space (though not, as yet, enough chairs) for the six adults, five teenagers, and one child in

waxjism's family, and in fact that's one of the reasons we and Wax's mom bought this house in the first place; MIL and I were planning this from the start, but after her sudden death in 2019, this year will be the first time we manage to actually do it.

That's Christmas Eve dinner in Finland, which is the main holiday here in the Nordic countries, and is primarily a big early-afternoon feast.

waxjism family's Swedish-Finnish Christmas Eve feast menu

roast ham (or appropriate substitute, such as an entire chicken - we tried that one year but it was too much work. I don't eat this and neither does one of my SILs.)

mutton- or turkey-roll (a traditional Scandi cold cut - Wax's mom always had lamb and in recent years we have had turkey brought by Wax's brother)

massive salad, somewhat fancy (Wax's mom's go-to was fresh fig, walnut, and grapefruit with an orange dressing; we skipped it in between but are planning to do it this year)

either boiled potatoes or creamy mashed potatoes (Wax and I took over potatoes about 10 years ago and swapped to creamy mashed potatoes to universal acclaim)

Herring salad/rosolli (NB that Finnish herring salad, unlike Swedish and Norwegian, doesn't contain herring anymore. Or mayonnaise. It's a massive amount of pickled beets and whipping cream mostly, and it's truly bizarre)

homemade bread, butter, lutfisk (cod pickled in lye) and gravlax (cold-cured salmon). Wax DOES like lutfisk, which is commonly considered disgusting by non-Scandis, but it's not as popular and we have stopped having it every year at her family gatherings because nobody else in the family likes it and it stinks up the house.

a green side dish - Wax's mom used to make these fancy little petit-four looking things with stewed mushrooms and spinach that were piped into these little rosette shapes. We are likely to just have roasted seasoned broccoli or green beans.

Carrot casserole, rutabaga casserole, and potato casserole, standard Finnish Christmas dishes. You can buy these at the store and just bake them yourself; they are commonly thought to be just as good as homemade. Wax likes them. I can take or leave them. They are fundamentally rather sweet.

Red and white wine

Traditionally (for Swedes and Finland Swedes - NOT for Finns!) snaps for snapsvisor, but we haven't had these in our family gatherings since Carmela, now 18, was a toddler. I guess once the youngest child, now 10, is a bit older, they will probably be reintroduced.

Wax is now a cake hobbyist and will be making a mousse cake and a bundt cake, because obviously, the full family is your most important audience with a hobby like that and the opportunity can't be missed.

Glögg, a Nordic mulled wine that features traditional warming spices and usually blackcurrant juice and is served hot with almonds and raisins in the glass, is served after dinner along with Swedish gingerbread cookies, American sugar cookies (these are the standard Christmas cookies from my childhood), and homemade candy while everyone opens presents together.

So we need to orchestrate the purchase and defrosting and roasting of the ham this year, because it's at our house and that takes so much time, even though we've never done it before, as well as the white wine, salad, herring salad, potatoes, green vegetables, and all the stuff that has to be warmed in the oven, and also the (in advance) preparation of 1-2 types of cookies, 2 cakes, fudge, and chocolate pretzel sticks. And a Christmas tree, which needs to be a tabletop one to keep it bunny-proof. We've already had a mishap and bought a too-small frozen ham that we're gonna have to exchange, so that's off to a great start.

Also our dining room still has the emergency backup curtains hanging and the designer curtain fabric we picked out languishing on a shelf, waiting to be hemmed into curtains.