{"id":2556,"date":"2010-12-23T11:38:32","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T11:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=2556"},"modified":"2010-12-23T11:38:32","modified_gmt":"2010-12-23T11:38:32","slug":"23-december-the-day-before-the-dipping-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/23-december-the-day-before-the-dipping-day\/","title":{"rendered":"23 December – The day before the Dipping Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yet again, all of Sweden in completely\u00a0covered in snow and you can’t find one single thermometer (outside…) \u00a0in the whole country showing above zero. -20, more likely. Snow is causing chaos all over Sweden with cancelled trains, unsafe roads and icy conditions and lots of people won’t make it home in time for Christmas Eve. I thought I would be one of those, since travelling from England turned out to be a bit of a hassle as well. But three cancelled flights later, we finally made it – to Oslo, Norway. Gothenburg a three hours drive\u00a0away from Oslo, but boy was it worth it once finally home! The first taste of ham (skinka<\/strong>), a few of mum’s meatballs (k\u00f6ttbullar<\/strong>) and a tiny piece of herring (sill<\/strong>) to get into the Christmas spririt…<\/p>\n

If you read this blog past Christmas, you will know all about the Dipping Day and the day before the Dipping Day, but I thought tihis would be the perfect day for a little reminder and some brush up on your Swedish tradition knowledge.<\/p>\n

Christmas Eve is not only known as julafton in Swedish, it is also known as the Dipping Day (Dopparedagen<\/strong>). And although we are Vikings and quite fond of our winter baths, this name has nothing to do with dipping in the ice cold sea. No, the name Dopparedagen comes from a very old tradition of dipping a piece of bread in meat stock. This rather unappetizing meal might have old hedonistic roots, but it\u2019s more likely that the tradition of dipping the bread in meat stock was created out of practical reasons in medieval Sweden. During all the Christmas preparations, there was not much time to cook ordinary everyday food. There were probably only some pieces of dry bread left over in the cupboard. And since meat was banned during the medieval feast (fastan<\/strong>), the dipping became a clever way of getting the taste of meat without eating it. Also, the left over bread got soaked in stock and therefore \u2013 not dry and boring anymore.<\/p>\n

This old tradition still lives on in many Swedish families, despite freshly baked bread and microwave ovens. Most of the dipping today is done with the left over stock from boiling the ham and the bread is most likely freshly baked. But, this is probably not the most popular thing on the Christmas table \u2013 and not the most common either There\u2019s really no need to dip in 2010, but\u00a0guess the dipping works in the same way as so many other traditions. They live on just because we quite like to stick to our roots and pass these things\u00a0on.<\/p>\n

Another fun tradition that we turn to on the day before the Dipping Day is the gift rhyming (julklappsrim<\/strong>) – a perfect thing to do while waiting for this looooong day to pass.\u00a0 A gift rhyme is exactly what it says – a little rhyme giving clues to what’s inside. This tradition dates way back, to when kids in the countryside used to walk around the village and knock people’s doors. When someone opened, they would\u00a0throw in a joke gift, like a peice of wood or a bundle of\u00a0straw with a note attached, explaining why the person recieved this lovely gift. I love this tradition and my family always spend the night before Christmas Eve trying to be creative and beat each other’s rhyming skills.<\/p>\n

Here’s one example – can you guess what’s inside?<\/p>\n

Mamma, du \u00e4r v\u00e4rd det allra b\u00e4sta,
\nf\u00e5r jag med n\u00e5tt gott dig fresta?
\nFlaskan i sig \u00e4r en tjusig sak,
\nden d\u00e4r\u00a0Calvin har riktigt god smak!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Yet again, all of Sweden in completely\u00a0covered in snow and you can’t find one single thermometer (outside…) \u00a0in the whole country showing above zero. -20, more likely. Snow is causing chaos all over Sweden with cancelled trains, unsafe roads and icy conditions and lots of people won’t make it home in time for Christmas Eve…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":2558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13122,3161,13124,13123,3449],"class_list":["post-2556","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-dopp-i-grytan","tag-dopparedagen","tag-gift-rhymes","tag-julklappsrim","tag-swedish-christmas"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2556","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2556"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2561,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2556\/revisions\/2561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}