Advent

Today is the celebration of the första advent (the first Advent) . Advent occurs on the 4 sundays before Xmas. The Swedish celebrate this with the lighting up of candles.

You can see the below structure at the windows of many Swedish homes, and its mostly electric candles instead of the real ones.


There are also many types of 'Xmas flowers' here . This is the hyacinter (hyacinth). I'm not sure if it is supposed to bloom, haha.. let u know again.

This is the Julstjärna. Colours are exactly right for Xmas. Jul means Xmas in Swedish.

Swedes also drink a Scandinavian wine called Glögg now. It is red wine spiced with cinnamon and cloves. It is served warm and then which you put the raisins and almonds into the warm wine. I like glögg, coz I am a big fan of cinnamon and almonds, ha!

Glögg is usually served with pepparkakor (Swedish ginger biscuits) and chocolate.

There's also something called the Adventskalendern. It is also known as the Xmas calender where doors/compartments are marked from 1st-24th Dec. Mainly for kids to countdown to Xmas- they can open the doors daily, and chocolates may be found in each compartment.

Saw one of these:

Also bought a gingerbread house for our gingerbread man, hee.

More Xmas celebrations/food to share next time..:)