Cream cake for breakfast – Only on your birthday! Posted by Katja on Mar 4, 2010 in Culture, Swedish Language
There are lots of ways to celebrate (fira) birthdays (födelsedagar), but the traditional way that is often used in older films like Astrid Lindgren’s books about Pippi Longstocking and her friends Tommy and Annika, Vi på saltkråkan and many more of her brilliant stories.
Swedish birthday song: Ja må hon leva
Strawberry-cream-cake (jordgubbstårta) is the most common Swedish birthday cake (födelsedagstårta), especially during the summer.
As soon as you wake up in the morning you must not under any circumstances leave your bedroom, on the contrary you must pretend to be asleep until your family “wakes you up”. Your whole family come singing into your room with candles, birthday cake and all your presents in the morning. As the birthday person/child (födelsedagsbarn) you are supposed to blow out all the candles and make a wish and eat at least one piece of cake for breakfast afterwards. Children can wake up several hours before everybody else and have to lie in bed waiting in suspense. This makes birthdays quite an exciting (spännande) day of the year for children.
How do you celebrate your birthday in your country? Have you come upon this tradition?
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Comments:
Michael:
What are the words to the song?
Tack
Katja:
Ja må hon leva,
Ja må hon leva,
Ja må hon leva ut i hundrade år,
Javist ska hon leva
Javist ska hon leva
Javist ska hon leva uti hundrade år
Ett fyrrfalligt leve för (the name of the birthday person)
Hurra, hurra, hurra, hurra
Hope this helps, tell me if you want me to translate it to english.
Luke (Sydney):
That sounds like a personal xmas! As far as I know Aussie kids have their cakes after diner if parents haven’t forgotten about it. As you can imagine it’s a long wait until unboxing the pressies. It’s more fun for the parents I think.