{"id":164,"date":"2009-02-15T11:04:22","date_gmt":"2009-02-15T15:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=164"},"modified":"2009-02-15T11:04:22","modified_gmt":"2009-02-15T15:04:22","slug":"alla-hjartans-dag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/alla-hjartans-dag\/","title":{"rendered":"Alla hj\u00e4rtans dag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2009\/02\/gele-hjartan.jpg\" aria-label=\"Gele Hjartan\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-165\"  alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"200\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2009\/02\/gele-hjartan.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2009\/02\/gele-hjartan.jpg 199w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2009\/02\/gele-hjartan-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a>That\u2019s what Valentine\u2019s Day is called in Sweden.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>alla<\/strong> \u2013 all<\/li>\n<li><strong>hj\u00e4rta<\/strong> (<em>def.<\/em> <strong>hj\u00e4rtat<\/strong>, <em>pl.<\/em> <strong>hj\u00e4rtan,<\/strong> <em>def. pl.<\/em> <strong>hj\u00e4rtana<\/strong>) \u2013 heart<\/li>\n<li><strong>dag<\/strong> \u2013 day<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You\u2019d know immediately that something is up by all the chocolate hearts at the supermarkets. And for those on a strict budget there are boxes of red <strong>gel\u00e9hj\u00e4rtan<\/strong> (as Mats has pointed out &#8211; even though some people and even companies write this word separately as &#8220;gel\u00e9 hj\u00e4rtan&#8221; &#8211; that is not correct) on sale, too.<\/p>\n<p>Valentine\u2019s Day came to Sweden sometime in the mid 60s promoted heavily by commercial interests. Of course, as elsewhere in the world, retailers saw it as yet another opportunity to sell more stuff. And what a better excuse than to guilt those buying that stuff and tell them it\u2019s all for love, right? Anyway, with varying degrees of success it kind of seemed to work.<\/p>\n<p>But how do average people on the street feel about Valentine\u2019s Day?<br \/>\nI thought that an informal poll was in order.<\/p>\n<p>I went downtown and in front of a local chocolate store began to ask questions about whether or not Valentine\u2019s Day is seriously celebrated in Sweden.<\/p>\n<p>These were the answers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8211;    foreign men with foreign wives (from countries where Valentine\u2019s Day is a long-standing tradition) \u2013 <em>\u201cYes, of course we celebrate it.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<li>&#8211;    foreign men with Swedish wives \u2013 <em>\u201cI didn\u2019t marry a Swede to bother with Valentine\u2019s day. If I needed yet another excuse to be forced to buy gifts, I\u2019d stick with my own kind.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<li>&#8211;    Swedish men with foreign spouses \u2013 <em>\u201cOf course we celebrate it \u2013 I\u2019d be sleeping outside in minus 10 degrees C if I didn\u2019t bring her a gift.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<li>&#8211;    Swedish men with Swedish wives \u2013 if the wife was within earshot \u2013 <em>\u201cYes, I guess we celebrate it.\u201d<\/em> If the wife was nowhere to be seen \u2013 <em>\u201cI think I do enough already as it is, what more could she want?\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<li>&#8211;    women, both foreign and Swedish \u2013 <em>\u201cI hope he\u2019ll do something special for me tonight.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So there you have it \u2013 straight from the mouths of the masses.<\/p>\n<p>As for me, my love promised to fix my computer. And since I missed posting on Valentine\u2019s Day proper, you can easily guess that it ended with promises. Tomorrow my laptop is going to see a handsome computer doctor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"199\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2009\/02\/gele-hjartan.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2009\/02\/gele-hjartan.jpg 199w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2009\/02\/gele-hjartan-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><p>That\u2019s what Valentine\u2019s Day is called in Sweden. alla \u2013 all hj\u00e4rta (def. hj\u00e4rtat, pl. hj\u00e4rtan, def. pl. hj\u00e4rtana) \u2013 heart dag \u2013 day You\u2019d know immediately that something is up by all the chocolate hearts at the supermarkets. And for those on a strict budget there are boxes of red gel\u00e9hj\u00e4rtan (as Mats has&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/alla-hjartans-dag\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[163],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-valentines-day"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}