Holiday baking & traditions

When I had time to sit down and take a breath I realized that December is flying by. It's already the 9th and there is so much to do! I have not yet done ANY holiday baking. We don't have our Christmas tree yet. But that is partly due to the fact that Andreas and I had to meet in the middle (he wouldn't put the tree up until Christmas Eve if i let him have his way, and I would put it up the day after Thanksgiving if he'd let me have my way).

So today, I'm going through all our favorite holiday recipes and making a game plan. I usually have all my favorites tucked away and he has a lot of his favorites in a couple of awesome books I have gotten from my sweet mother-in-law




They have so many cool traditions and I want to make sure that Andreas isn't deprived of any, if we can help it. Being he is always so far from home on Christmas, I want him to have a piece of his country and his family with him so it's not totally Americanized. We don't have any really cool traditions anyway. I can't really think of anything that really stands out.

For instance, in Sweden, they have a "Christmas Goat". It's the funniest thing when you first hear about it. Emma has a children's book by a Scandinavian author, that incorporates the Christmas Goat in the story. It's pretty cool.


See in this picture, on the floor behind the chair, there is a goat made from straw (try not to notice my child's ungroomed finger nails)


We have one too!


Of course, there are many other interesting things I could point out but that is blog post (or 10) in itself. This month I want to try and blog about all the wonderful things I've come to love about a Swedish Christmas. From Andreas' thirst for Julmust & Glögg to Lucia buns and rice porridge. But now, I'm off to start some Christmas cookies!