When my family emigrated to Malmö, I wanted to stick to our traditions, but my husband was keen to embrace the local customs. Why were we butting heads?
It was 3pm on Christmas Eve and already getting dark. As I stripped off on a wooden pier over the Baltic Sea in Malmö, Sweden, my husband and five-year-old boy, bundled up against the harsh wind, chanted: "Go Mummy, go Mummy, go Mummy!" Just as I was about to heroically slither out of my final layer, a bearded, completely naked man, who can only be described as Viking-esque, ascended the wooden ladder from the sea, looked at me with horror and possibly hypothermia in his eyes and shook his head. I put my five layers of clothing back on and, feeling deflated, suggested we crack open the Thermos. I knew I had failed at Swedish Christmas.
My family and I emigrated to Sweden from the UK last winter, and while the days seemed impossibly short and dark, we were buoyed up by optimism, glögg (Swedish mulled wine) studded with almonds and raisins, and our new city, scattered with fairy lights. However, as the advent countdown began, a cold front harsher than the Baltic Sea swept through our cosy new home. My husband wanted to be "more Swedish than the Swedes"; I wanted some familiar traditions to pass on to my son. And so, December became a period of friendly but fierce negotiations.
Yes, I still wanted Christmas cake, and it was important to me to have roast potatoes with dinner. I went to the Taste of Britain shop in town in search of Bisto gravy and some exorbitantly priced crackers. Sure, we could open presents on Christmas Eve, as is the Swedish way, but we needed to save my son's stocking and "big present" for Christmas morning proper.
We went to a Christmas market every weekend, where the only food on offer was the ubiquitous hotdog and pepparkakor (Swedish gingersnaps). Instead of visiting a cheerful, rosy-cheeked Santa, my little boy queued for a long time to see a taciturn Tomte, a sort of grumpy house elf, who took my little boy’s wishlist of strictly three presents only, signed it and handed it back with the exhausted resignation of a job centre adviser.
Instead of roast dinner, my husband wanted to have the traditionally Swedish Jansson’s temptation: a gratin of potatoes, anchovies, cream and onion; an unfathomable selection of fish - gravlax, fermented herring and roe -; and perhaps a large Christmas ham. It didn’t matter how much I reminded my usually easy-going spouse that none of us liked baked ham or fish that much - Christmas was Jul now, and that was that.
Eventually, on Lucia Day - a traditional day of candlelit processions of angelic kids, held on the 13 December, that's meant to bring light and hope to dark winter - we untangled our adversarial tinsel. My husband, who had moved to Switzerland from London aged eight, explained that he had always felt slightly out of place and, as a result, wanted our son to adopt the most Swedish traditions as soon as possible so that he could fully assimilate.
Meanwhile, I had grown up in a selection of homeless hostels and council flats in Scotland and England with very little money and even fewer happy Christmas memories. I wanted to give my son the perfect festive season that I had always imagined: a Christmas tree; a huge trifle; photos in an ugly Christmas jumper with Santa; a joyful frenzy of wrapping paper on Christmas morning.
Each of us just wanted our little boy to have a great Christmas - and we soon realised we could do both: a table laden with sprouts and herring. This year, instead of quarrelling on Christmas Eve about whether we'll watch The Snowman or, as in so many Swedish homes, Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul (From All of Us to All of You), a 1958 festive Donald Duck cartoon, we'll do both. We'll supersize our celebrations, Scots-Swedish style, and embrace excess. I will be taking that Baltic sea dip on Christmas Eve and also paying wildly over the odds for a tub of Twiglets and an imported Radio Times.
We're not quite Swedish; no longer really British; but our Christmas will be as sweet and shiny as a box of Quality Street. A cool Jul for the whole family.