Christmas means different things to different people, I’m sure that that is a commonly agreed on fact by now. For a lot of people christmas has no longer anything to do with the birth of Jesus, it can be summed up with presents, Santa, snow and holidays. In Sweden food and family are huge contributing factors as well.

The stores aren’t terrible about when they hang out their x-mas decorations and it is really only this week that they have really pulled out things. I was a little surprised at this and thought “Wow, is it christmas time so soon?” I’ve talked to people and most of us agree that it is the lack of snow making it hard to believe its soon december. In many cities in Sweden there is always snow on the ground by mid-november. This year at least Umeå (in the north) hasn’t had snow once.

Instead I have focused on what the stores have to offer. Pepparkaksdeg (gingerbread dough) has been out on the markets for about 2 weeks, if not a little bit longer. 🙂 And they have been handing out free Christmas recipe pamphlets too.

Of course everything is online as always, but I find it very inspiring to pick up a pamphlet and look through it while choosing what Christmas baking to do.

This is ICA’s (one of Sweden’s biggest grocery store chains) Christmas logo for this year. The text on the picture saying “Julköket” meaning the Christmas kitchen, and followed by “och det goda stöket” on the second row. “Och det goda stöket” means: and the good preparations/bustling about.