1. Christmas in Finland

2. Christmas waiting starts at 1
Christmas waiting starts at 1.12  when children open the Christmas calendar’s first hatch. They open one hatch per one day, usually there is chocolate, candy and there’s even picture calendars. Younger children write a letter to Santa Claus to Korvatunturi. Maybe  you have already heard, that Santa Claus is living in Finland. In some families they decorate the Christmas tree(The tree is not real). Closer to Christmas rest of the people buy real Christmas trees. Also many children make  snowfakes of white paper and they decorate the windows with them.

4. In the morning everybody wakes up excited.
               
24.12
In the morning everybody wakes up excited.
You eat delicious rice porridge. There’s hidden almond in it.
The one who finds the almond, gets good luck for the next
year. Many people visit the grave yard.
In the evening you have  Christmas dinner, for Appetizer you have
herring, potatoes, salmon and some other fishes. For main course
you have ham, rutabaga-, potatoe-, and carrot casserole also rosolli
salad is very typical Finnish food. For desert we have
a special kind of pastry and we drink a hot drink called glögi. You can
 see the pictures on the food page.

6. On Jesus’s birthday we celebrate Christmas
25.12                           
On Jesus’s birthday we celebrate Christmas       
peacefully.  Everyone spends  time with  their families. In the evening you eat the same food as you ate on Christmas Eve.
26.12           
Boxing day(In Finland we call it Tapanin päivä). This is a day when everybody wants to visit relatives and friends. Back in the days it was common that everybody rode a horse to visit friends.

8. There are pictures on the next page.
New Year’s Eve
In New Year’s Eve you visit your friends. Its very common that many people want to buy fireworks and shoot them up to the sky. You start launching already about 7 o’clock in the evening, if you have small children in the family. Many families warm their sauna and they eat delicious food. Student’s common food on New Year’s Eve is sausage and potatoe salad.  In the midnight you have spectacular fireworks in the middle of Helsinki. The place is called Senaatintori, there’s a beautiful white church in it.
There are pictures on the next page.
It’s also a common habbit that you pour tin on a pan. After that you put it in ice cold water. You will slowly notice a figure of tin. It will predict your luck for the next year.

10. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!