Another Swedish Christmas
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Wednesday, December 9, 2015
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Come join us for a night of fun and frolic and a taste of a Swedish Christmas. We will meet on the second floor of the IKEA at the restaurant at 5:30 PM till closing time. Location: 1100 Broadway Mall, Hicksville, NY.
Tell us the story. Here we go again for 2015. Christmas A thousand years ago in Sweden, King Canute declared that Christmas would last a month, from December 13, the feast of St. Lucia until January 13, or Tjugondag Knut (St. Canute's Day). No one is quite sure why Lucia, a 4th century Sicilian saint, came to be so revered in Sweden. Some say she once visited the country, and others believe missionaries brought stories of her life which entranced the Swedish people. Her story is that in the days of early Christian persecution, Lucia carried food to Christians hiding in dark underground tunnels. To light the way she wore a wreath of candles on her head. Eventually Lucia was arrested and martyred. On her feast day the eldest daughter in each family dresses in a white dress with a red sash, and wears an evergreen wreath with seven lighted candles on her head. She (very carefully) carries coffee and buns to each family member in his or her room. Many schools, offices, and communities sponsor Lucia processions in which carol are sung and everyone thanks the Queen of Light for bringing hope during the darkest time of the year.On Christmas Eve a certain Christmas gnome, known as the tomte, emerges from his home under the floor of the house or the barn. He carries a sack over his shoulder and leaves gifts for all.Donald Duck and the Christmas Eve Program: The Christmas Eve program always begins at 3pm on Christmas Eve. At that time, I’m not kidding, nearly all of Sweden stops what they are doing and they sit down to some ritualistic television. At precisely 3pm Swedens Television (SVT) airs “Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul” (From All of Us to All of You). “Kalle Anka” as you might know is known as “Donald Duck” in English. The one-hour Disney show which is shown in many countried consists of clips from classic Disney films like “Robin Hood” and “The Jungle Book.”The history of the Gävle Goat began in 1966. An advertising consultant, Stig Gavlén, came up with the idea of making a giant version of the traditional Swedish Yule Goat and placing it in the square.The design of the first goat was assigned to the then chief of the Gävle fire department, Gavlén's brother Jörgen Gavlén. The construction of the goat was carried out by the fire department, and they erected the goat each year from 1966 to 1970 and from 1986 to 2002. The first goat was financed by a man named Harry Ström. On 1 December 1966, a 13-metre (43 ft) tall, 7-metre (23 ft) long, 3-tonne goat was erected in the square. However, at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, the goat went up in flames. The goat has since had a history of being burnt down roughly every other year, 2012 being the 26th time. The financing for the initial goats came from a group of businessmen known as the Southern Merchants (Söders Köpmän), so named because all their members were located on the southern side of Gävleån ("Gävle river"), a river that runs through central Gävle dividing the town into north and south. In 1971, the Southern Merchants became so frustrated with the continual burning of their goats, that for 15 years they stopped building them, and the task was taken up by the Natural Science Club of the School of Vasa. The Natural Science Club's Yule Goat fared no better; besides being burnt and vandalised, one year it was even run over by a car. From 1988 onward, English bookmakers made it possible to bet on the goat's destiny. In 1996 the Southern Merchants introduced webcams to monitor the goat 24 hours a day, with little or no success. On 27 November 2004 the Gävle Goat's homepage was hacked into and one of the two official webcams changed to display "Brinn Bockjävel" (translation: Burn, ****ing goat) in the left corner of its live feed. One year, while security guards were posted around the goat in order to prevent further vandalism, the temperature dropped far below zero. As the guards ducked into a nearby restaurant to escape the cold, the vandals struck. Before they even had a chance to raise their glasses they saw flames shooting from the goat through the restaurant window. During the weekend of 3–4 December 2005 a series of attacks on public Yule Goats across Sweden were carried out; The Gävle Goat was burnt on 3 December, which escalated into a frenzy of copycat goat-burning across Sweden. The Visby goat on Gotland burned down, the Yule Goat in Söderköping, Östergötland was torched, and there was an attack on a goat located in Lycksele, Västerbotten. That goat escaped with only minor burn marks on the legs. The price tag for constructing the goat is around 100,000 Swedish kronor (as of 2005). The cost for the 1966 goat was SEK 10,000. The city pays one-third of the cost while the Southern Merchants pay the remaining sum. Since 2003 the construction of the goat has been undertaken by a group of unemployed people (known as ALU workers). Nowadays, if the goat is burned down before Lucia (feast day of Saint Lucy, 13 December), it will be rebuilt. .The Gävle Goat is erected every year on the first day of Advent, which according to Western Christian tradition is in late November or early December, depending on the calendar year. In recent years, the so-called "Goat Committee" have had a plan for a backup goat. Because the fire station is close to the location of the goat, most of the time the fire can be extinguished before the robust wooden skeleton is severely damaged. The skeleton is then treated and repaired, and the goat reconstructed over it, using straw which the Goat Committee has pre-ordered. Burning the goat is an illegal act and can result in severe fines or even prison time for arson. However, during the 39 years of the Gävle Goat's history up to 2005, only four people have been caught or convicted. The burning of the Gävle Goat is not officially welcomed by the citizens of Gävle, but it has made the goat famous and led to increased tourism. The Department of Tourism in Gävle gets bombarded with e-mails from all over the world questioning whether the city supports the burning of the Gävle Goat. Officially the city says that it does not support the burnings. The Christmas season of 2006 marked the 40th anniversary of the Gävle Goat, and, on Sunday 3 December, the city held a large celebration in honor of the goat. The Goat Committee fireproofed the goat with "Fiber ProTector Fireproof", a fireproofing substance that is used in airplanes. In earlier years when the goat had been fireproofed, the dew had made the liquid drip off the goat. To prevent this from happening in 2006, "Fireproof ProTechtor Solvent Base" was applied to the goat.
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