Finland through the eyes of a 15-year-old exchange student: part 2
Are you curious to know what does Finland look like through the eyes of a 15-year-old Australian girl? Abigail Barrett is currently on a high school exchange in Naantali, Finland for a year, and in this series, she shares her experiences with us.
Read the first part of the series here.
Moi everyone! Welcome back! It has been a hectic couple of months – I have now been in Finland for six months, but I wanted to write a little bit about Christmas in Finland because it is such a big thing.
One thing you should know about Finnish people is that they go HARD for Christmas. At first, I thought, “oh that’s cool and random”, but when it was explained to me it actually made a lot of sense. Finnish winters, especially November and December, are very dark and usually very cold too, so for Finns, Christmas is something they can focus on instead of the gloom outside. Beginning the moment the calendar changed from October to November, the Christmas spirit was stronger than ever, except for a small break on the 6th of December for Finnish Independence Day. There were huge Christmas trees in marketplaces and everyone had lights in their yards. In early December there was an abundance of ‘pikkujoulu’ Christmas parties to go to and Christmas food to eat – even the school provided a Christmas lunch! I fell in love with a Christmas drink – Glögi – which is almost like mulled wine. It is served warm and delicious so I drank A LOT of it over Christmas!
Another different part for me was how school ended for the year. It was a Friday night and the school gathered at the local church for a Christmas ceremony starting at 11.00 pm. I and the other two exchange students did a short speech in Finnish describing some of the differences between our Christmases which went down well, and there was also singing and some other speeches to listen to. When it ended, we all headed back to the school, sat in the auditorium, and sung some more songs before we were all able to go home. It was the definitely first time I have ever been at school at midnight!
When Christmas Day finally rolled around a little earlier than I expected (Finns celebrate on the 24th instead of the 25th) we had a traditional breakfast of rice porridge with cinnamon before moving the festivities to the sauna (what did you expect?!). For lunch was fish, ham, potatoes, many types of casserole, eggs, bread and salad. After we finished eating as much as we could, we had a visit from Santa Claus who brought all of the presents with him. We opened presents and then just chilled out for the rest of the day. It was so interesting to experience a different Christmas than I am used to, and it was really enjoyable.
Overall, although Christmas was very different here, I enjoyed it just as much. I found the Christmas spirit here so strong and the amount of time people put into making the whole season perfect is amazing. Thanks for reading – talk again soon!
Photos and text: Abigail Barrett