I am Swedish and Ireland is my home away from home. I have been living in Ireland for over 20 years now and this Christmas my parents are coming over to celebrate with us for the first time in 4 years!

Last year we overcame all odds and got to Sweden. Had we arrived 5 hours later they would have closed the border and my Irish husband would have been turned away due to the UK variant of Covid then. The year before my sister was pregnant and couldn’t fly so my parents stayed with her and the year before my father had prostate cancer. So, my parents missed my son’s first Christmas and this will be their first Christmas with him at home in Ireland.

I have ordered some Swedish treats and there is a Swedish Christmas market here, and I will do my best to replicate my mother’s favorites here. We will watch the Late Late Toy Show and then we will watch the Swedish advents calendar series on TV all December.

The 13th of December we celebrate St. Lucia. I will have to take the 23rd of December off to do all the cooking and in Sweden it is when we traditionally decorate the tree, but living in Ireland we won’t get away with waiting that long, but it will be a REAL tree. Santa then comes to us the night to 24th as we are half Swedish, and we celebrate on the 24th and Santa will even show up on the day!