A Storybook Christmas Eve
My mother’s side of the family has been celebrating Christmas Eve the traditional Scandinavian way for over 100 years now. We eat dup, lingonberries, limpa bread, and rice pudding that has a single shaved almond meant to bring good luck to the partaker. Kind of like the baby in a king cake, but without the responsibility of providing the next desert.
Maybe I shouldn’t call it entirely traditional. We have long since nixed eating pickled herring and at the Nagel house, we’ve traded in the sharp goat cheese for boursin, brie, havarti, and pepper jelly covered cream cheese. A mostly traditional Scandinavian feast with a hint of France and a slight Cajun touch. Perfection.
I have to admit that I’ve never been much of one to appreciate a white Christmas. In Louisiana we used to drive to the Mississippi River to see the giant bonfires that line the tops of the levees. When it gets dark they set them on fire to light the way for Santa in his alligator pulled pirogue as he comes to bring us all presents. You see, Santa has to trade his sleigh in for a pirogue once he gets to Louisiana since there is no snow. But I couldn’t help but love this year’s white Christmas with a fresh Christmas Eve snowfall. Beautiful.
To top off our perfect feast in the perfect setting, we had the pleasure of some last minute guests. Corbrett came down from Logan and the Udalls (having come all the way from West Virginia) were a surprise addition to our crew. Guests are an important part of the Nagel family version of a Haglund Christmas Eve. Especially when it’s time to write our pre-pudding verse. You see, before anyone can eat pudding, everyone must compose and read a bit of on the spot verse. After so many years of writing Christmas Eve poems, we tend to write about the same things. So our guests bring a new perspective and, often times, a welcome new sense of humor to our table.
I’ll leave you with my poem from this year. Mind you, this verse is not supposed to be a poem. Really just more of a rhyme. So forgive my complete lack of form.
I hope you’ve all enjoyed the holiday season.
My year without the Christmas Eve nut
Resulted in mononucleosis and doctors removing the appendix from my gut
So needless to say, I’d like this year to go a different way
Of the 2008 luck, I feel I deserve a better cut
I like your poem. Did you get the nut? And I love the pictures. It makes me want to do it all over again! We have smoked salmon instead of pickled herring and it’s on the list of traditional Swedish things that I found when I was looking stuff up to see how “traditional” our dinner really is. I think salmon is a great substitute for the herring and it still counts as Swedish even if you can get it all year long at Costco.
By the way, what’s up with calling it “Scandinavian”? Where is your Swedish pride?
I didn’t get the nut. John Udall did. I like the smoked salmon idea. I’ll suggest it to mom next year.
As for the Scandinavian vs. Swedish, I kept on telling Corbrett that it was a traditional Swedish dinner and MOM corrected me and said that we really should give the credit to all of Scandinavia. Go figure.
we have salmon, too! good call, ellie.
Your food photos are great. Maybe your new plan should include a semester of photography school and a job with one of the cooking magazines. Just a thought. XXXOOO
I agree with Mom…those photos look good enough to eat!!! And so I enjoy the dinner all over again just looking at your photos!
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