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CHRISTMAS

GUIDE: The Local’s Christmas gift guide of classic Swedish homeware

Tis the season, once again. As Sweden is slowly enveloped by darkness, Christmas lights guide us through the streets, warm and glowing. Spread the yuletide cheer among your close ones with these classic items from Swedish producers.

GUIDE: The Local's Christmas gift guide of classic Swedish homeware
Rörstrand coffee cups. Photo: Vilhelm Stokstad/TT

Rörstrand

One of Sweden’s most iconic ceramic and porcelain brands, Rörstrand started out making plates about 300 years ago. Generations later, today their collection spans coffee cups, teapots, table linen and adventsbarn, or ‘Advent children’, their advent decorations created in collaboration with famous Swedish designers from across the country.

Some items are affordably priced at just over 100 kronor for an eggcup, tea towel or bowl, while larger items such as teapots or tablecloths sell for over 1,500 kronor. Their products are available at their flagship store in Stockholm or online.

Glasses from Orrefors which were given to Crown Princess Victoria upon her wedding to Prince Daniel in 2010. Photo: Felipe Morales/TT

Orrefors Glassware

Orrefors-Kosta Boda has been producing high-quality glass products for over a hundred years now. They use the simplest of raw materials procured from southern Sweden and turn them into beautiful, everyday goods.

Orrefors’ glasses, carafes, bowls and vases are timeless Swedish designs and make for an ideal functional gift for someone who loves elegant glassware.

Prices start at around 400 kronor for glasses, going up to 4,000 kronor for a gold-painted carafe (which happens to be the same carafe used at the Nobel Prize Dinner in Stockholm town hall), both available on Orrefors’ website.

The Karottstapeln set of Skeppshult cast iron pans. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

Skeppshult Cast-Iron Cookware

Sweden’s answer to mass-produced kitchenware is Skeppshult’s long lasting, handmade cast iron products. In production since 1906, Skeppshult aims to create environmentally-friendly items from natural and pure raw materials.

Their catalogue includes frying pans, pancake and waffle irons, oven and grill dishes, casseroles, and smaller items like spice grinders and salt and pepper shakers, all available individually and in sets.

They also have interior decorations like Christmas tree stands, candle holders and table coasters. The prices range from a few hundred kronor for smaller items such as salt and pepper grinders to over 2,000 kronor for the largest cast iron pans. Sets cost between 2,500 and 6,000 kronor.

Skeppshult has a factory store in Jönköping and a concept store in Stockholm, as well as an online shop.

Kockums Jernverk’s classic range of enamel cookware. Photo: Kockums

Kockums Jernverk

This company was founded by the Kockums family in the 18th century in Ronneby, and started out with manufacturing pots, buckets, and hospital utensils.

They gained recognition thanks to their signature product line of enamelled cookware in 1893, which has now firmly made its mark on Swedish design. Today, Kockum’s designs are characterised by their high-quality and vibrantly colourful range, but their bestseller remains the pale yellow colour lined with a dark green edge, a combination beloved by Swedes.

Kockums took a hit in the 60s thanks to the boom in plastic products, but as the need for sustainability called, with some innovation and the re-introduction of their bestselling designs, Kockums’ sales are booming today.

Their collection boasts of a wide range of iron and steel enamelled utensils and accessories in leather and glass along with a similar line in wooden goods all priced between 40 and 3,300 kronor on their online store.

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CHRISTMAS

Julmys: How to get into the Christmas spirit like a Swede

The First of Advent kicks of the Christmas season in Sweden. How do you get into the festive spirit like a Swede?

Julmys: How to get into the Christmas spirit like a Swede

Julmys, made up of the word jul (Christmas) and that famous Swedish word mys, roughly translating as “cosiness”, is not an event as such, more just getting your friends or family together to do some Christmassy activities and get into the Christmas spirit.

Usually you’ll have some sort of festive food and activity, like baking, making paper decorations for your Christmas tree, or decorating your Advent candlestick.

If you’re meeting up on one of the four Sundays in Advent, the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, you can call it adventsmys, but you can still do these activities on a normal day and just call it julmys instead.

What should I bake?

Obviously you can bake whatever you want, and this is a great opportunity to show off whatever kind of festive baking you do back home for big holidays, but if you want to do as the Swedes do, there are a few essential cakes and biscuits you should try around Christmas time.

The most easily recognisable biscuits are probably pepparkakor, the Swedish version of gingerbread, a spiced brown dough which is rolled out and cut into shapes before baking.

Pepparkaka literally translates as “pepper cake” – biscuits are known as småkakor or “small cakes” in Swedish – but in most cases pepper doesn’t refer to actual black pepper but rather to some kind of spiced dough, commonly flavoured with some combination of ingefära (ginger), kanel (cinnamon), kardemumma (cardamom) and nejlika (cloves).

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You can buy pepparkaksdeg (gingerbread dough) in most supermarkets which you shape and bake yourself, but it’s relatively easy to make from scratch too. Some Swedes may balk at the idea of köpedeg (store-bought dough) – this is because there’s a little gnome who prefers everything homemade and traditional who lives inside them this time of the year, but it’s not socially unacceptable to buy ready-made.

You can also use the pepparkakor to make a gingerbread house (pepparkakshus).

Especially around Lucia on December 13th, Swedes also like to make lussekatter, saffron buns shaped like an S which is said to resemble a sleeping cat, hence the name “Lucia cats”. Warm, soft and sweet, they are at their best hot out of the oven. Enjoy them with a cup of glögg.

Many people also make knäck this time of the year, a kind of hard Swedish toffee. It’s tricky to get the consistency right – they should be hard when you first put them in your mouth, but quickly melt into a gooey softness as you begin to chew – so try to find an experienced Swede to teach you.

What about decorations?

OK, so you’ve got your Christmas snacks sorted – now onto the decorations!

One of the most common types of paper decorations you’re likely to see people making around Christmas is the julgranshjärta (Christmas tree hearts). You’ll need scissors, relatively thick paper in two different colours and a lot of patience. Here’s a useful guide to how to make them.

Another popular decoration is the smällkaramell – Christmas crackers. The Swedish version usually doesn’t go “crack!” like its English-language equivalent, but on the other hand they are very easy to make yourself.

You just get an empty toilet roll, roll it up in some pretty, thin paper and cut the edges of the paper into strips.

If you want, you can put a piece of candy inside before taping it shut, which you open at the julgransplundring when Christmas is over. But more often than not, Swedes will save their smällkarameller for future Christmasses.

Hopefully that’s given you some ideas for how to get into the Christmas spirit, Swedish style. Now all that’s left is to warm up a bottle of glögg and put on some Swedish julsånger. God jul!

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