A Sauna, a Graveyard and the Best Ham of Your Life: Finnish Christmas Explained
Finnish Christmas is not what most people expect. There's no frantic commercial buildup and nobody drags you to an obligatory office party dressed up as fun. Instead you get a sauna, a graveyard, the best roast ham of your life and a quiet kind of meaning that's easier to feel than to explain. After more than twenty Finnish Christmases, I've come to the conclusion that the Finns have quietly got this one right. Central to it all is the Finnish sauna, which on Christmas Eve becomes something closer to ritual than routine.
1. Christmas Eve is the main event
If you grew up anywhere in the Anglosphere, your body clock insists the big day is the 25th. Finland politely disagrees. Christmas Eve is the day here, with the main meal, the gifts and the whole evening of celebration packed into the 24th. Christmas Day is for leftovers, long walks and well-earned quiet. The first time it happens you feel like you've turned up to the party a day early. Then you realise the party simply works better this way.
2. Joulupukki is not your average Santa
Joulupukki translates, literally, as Christmas Goat. Try explaining that to a British five-year-old. The name comes from pagan tradition, when he appeared as a symbol of fertility and good fortune rather than presents. These days he lives at Korvatunturi, a hill in Lapland shaped like an ear, which is ideal for listening to children's wishes. Better still, Joulupukki knocks on the front door and hands over the gifts in person. There are no chimney theatrics in Finland. The man simply turns up, often suspiciously soon after an uncle has popped out for some fresh air.
3. Christmas Eve begins with a sauna
Before the meal and before the gifts comes the sauna. Families take a candlelit steam on Christmas Eve as both preparation and ritual, a cleansing in the literal and the spiritual sense. The saunatonttu, the sauna elf, is said to watch over proceedings and you're expected to behave respectfully. I was sceptical about the elf the first time too. Then you sit in the candlelight with snow falling past the window and the whole arrangement makes perfect sense.
On Christmas Eve the count goes yksi, kaksi, kolme, sauna, same as every other day of the year, only with candles. This is the shirt for anyone who knows the steam comes before the ham.
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Get the shirt4. The tree goes up on Christmas Eve morning
While much of the world starts decorating in early December, plenty of Finnish families wait until Christmas Eve morning to bring in and dress the tree. The tradition dates from the days when trees were cut fresh from the forest on the morning itself. Decorating is a shared job, with ornaments that are often handmade or handed down, and the scent of pine filling the house is considered part of the ritual rather than a bonus.
5. Joulukinku, the Christmas ham
The centrepiece of the Finnish Christmas table is joulukinku, a large piece of pork that goes into the oven as early as Christmas Eve morning and cooks at low heat for most of the day. It's served with mustard and a supporting cast of carrot, potato and swede casseroles. Finns take the ham extremely seriously. Every family has its own method, defended quietly across generations, and suggesting an improvement to someone else's glaze is a mistake you only make once.
6. Visiting the grave
On Christmas Eve afternoon, many Finnish families visit cemeteries to place candles on the graves of relatives. In the winter darkness, Finnish graveyards become extraordinary, row after row of small flames glowing across the snow. The first time I saw it, I expected to find it sombre. It's anything but. It's one of the most quietly beautiful things this country does.
7. Rice pudding and the almond
Riisipuuro, rice pudding, is served at Christmas with a single almond hidden somewhere in the pot. Whoever finds it is promised good fortune for the coming year. This sounds like a gentle children's game until you watch a table of adults excavating their bowls with the focus of forensic investigators. The competition is real and the bragging rights last until Easter.
8. The Christmas peace declaration
Every Christmas Eve at noon, the Christmas Peace is declared in Turku, a tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages. The declaration is broadcast on national radio and television, officially marking the start of Christmas and calling for peace and respect throughout the season. The whole country genuinely pauses to listen. Even the radio seems to lower its voice.
Turku declares peace at noon and the rest of the country, already fluent in it, simply carries on. This is the shirt for people who never needed the announcement.
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Get the shirt9. Stars made of straw
Himmeli are geometric mobiles made of straw, hung from the ceiling to turn slowly in the candlelight. They were originally tied to harvest rituals and the hope of a good crop, and somewhere along the way they migrated from agriculture to Christmas. Handmade ones are still common and the skill of making them is passed down with the kind of care other countries reserve for secret recipes.
10. Glögi
Finland's Christmas drink is glögi, a hot spiced drink served with raisins and almonds waiting at the bottom of the cup, often without a drop of alcohol in sight. It's drunk all through December rather than saved for the day itself. Ask a Finn what December smells like and the answer is glögi, usually delivered with a faraway look.
The first glögi of December is one of the few moments a Finn will call ihana out loud. This is the shirt for the things that genuinely earn the word.
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Get the shirt11. Boxing Day is quiet
Finland's Boxing Day, Tapaninäivä, is Saint Stephen's Day. It was traditionally a day for horses and sleigh rides, and these days it's mostly a day of calm, with visits to relatives, walks through the winter landscape and the long slow comedown after Christmas Eve. The cities are largely empty. After the 24th, everyone has earned it.
12. A genuinely Finnish Christmas
What makes Finnish Christmas distinctive isn't any single tradition. It's the combination of solemn and warm, ancient and domestic, a candlelit graveyard in the December darkness followed by sauna, ham and family. It's a Christmas that takes its meaning seriously without ever performing it. Two decades in, I wouldn't swap it for the British version, although I do still miss the crackers.
If all of this is quietly reminding you of someone, the Nordic Gifts collection is full of things a Finn will approve of without ever quite saying so.
Frequently asked questions
What is a traditional Finnish Christmas like?
Finnish Christmas centres on Christmas Eve. Families gather for a sauna, a large meal featuring roast ham and casseroles and the exchange of gifts. Many visit cemeteries in the afternoon to light candles on graves. The atmosphere is warm but serious, far less commercial and frenetic than Christmas in many other countries.
What does Joulupukki mean?
Joulupukki means Christmas Goat in Finnish, a reference to the character's pagan origins. Today he functions as Finland's Santa Claus, based in Lapland at Korvatunturi. Unlike other versions of Santa, Joulupukki typically delivers gifts in person, knocking on the door rather than arriving via chimney.
What do Finns eat at Christmas?
The main dish is joulukinku, roast pork ham, served with mustard and a selection of casseroles, carrot (porkkanalaatikko), potato (perunalaatikko) and swede (lanttulaatikko) among them. Herring dishes and rice pudding with a hidden almond are also traditional. The meal is served on Christmas Eve.
Why do Finns go to the sauna on Christmas Eve?
The Christmas sauna is a longstanding tradition with roots in both practical and spiritual significance. It's a moment of preparation and cleansing before the main celebration, taken seriously across generations. The saunatonttu or sauna elf, is associated with the Christmas sauna specifically, a figure who watches over the household and expects respectful behaviour.
What is glögi?
Glögi is Finland's Christmas drink, a hot, spiced beverage similar to mulled wine, available in alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions. It's typically served with raisins and almonds dropped into the bottom of the cup and drunk throughout December. The scent of glögi is closely associated with the Finnish Christmas season.
Quiet, serious and entirely its own
Finnish Christmas doesn't need explaining to Finns. They grew up with it and they mostly prefer it to the alternatives. For everyone else, it's a useful reminder that Christmas can mean something rooted and real without requiring much noise to prove it.
101 Very Finnish Problems began as a list of observations about Finnish life. It became a book because the observations kept coming.
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4 comments
There’s some false information in this article when speaking about Finnish Christmas carols.
It’s told here that
‘Varpunen jouluaamuna’ (Sparrow on a Christmas Morning, lyrics by Zachris Topelius), for example, tells a story of a girl and her dead little brother. The brother has died of famine, but visits the girl on Christmas morning in a shape of a sparrow. ‘The morsel of food you offered brought me from the land on angels’ . "
The little brother DID’NT die in famine but in a disease. ZachrisTopelius wrote his own sorrow about the loss of a beloved son, who died in a fatal sickness.
Rafael was his only son, and in the poem which was later composed as a beloved Christmas song, he described how the late baby boy came to visit his sister in a shape of a sparrow.
In 1800’s it was very common that babies died in some sickness before their first birthday, the story of the song was very familiar in most families resonating in people’s hearts, and the song became very popular.
It’s very easy to claim Finnish Christmas songs as sad, if you dont know well the Finnish culture and the background of the songs as in “Sparrow in the Christmas Morning”. The Finnish Christmas is not a noisy festival, it’s a family celebration with solemnity and mid-winter mood with Christmas tree, candle lights and good food. In the background there’s an old agrarian mid-winter festival, when there was time to rest and there was plenty of food. The solemnity becomes from gratitude of the food security and Christian traditions, which are still in the background of the Finnish Christmas.
And when it’s the darkest time of the year and you feel yourself more or less drowsy, then the songs have easily some melancholy.
But there are also cheerful Christmas carols and plays, which used to be performed at school celebrations. Now however the demand of non-religious Christmas celebrations have ruined many nice traditions.
Maybe we should remove also the English word ‘Christmas’ which is referencing to the birth of Christ…?
The Finnish word ‘joulu’ (coming from the old word ‘yule’) is better in this meaning, cause it has nothing to do with Christianity 😊.
In our version of Latino Christmas traditions, Christmas Eve is the star. We feast. Go to church and open presents. When I was younger the tree was decorated then..now, most of us decorate earlier. Wit the price of evergreens. we want to get our money’s worth.
The Finnish Joulupukki of today is a scary and very old man, who is tired and skinny, can hardly stand up, and sings a dreary song to children, who answer him a farewell when it is time for him to go on. The first time I saw him I was not impressed, and I haven’t been impressed since.
In my childhood in Finland we had dried cod with stinky white sauce, roast gammon, roast beef, boiled potatoes, oven baked dishes of swede, carrots and rice or liver and raisins. Also a cold salad of chopped root vegetables with sauce of whipped cream sweetened and coloured with beetroot juice called " rosolli". For afters we had rice porridge with dried fruit boiled and thickened. with potato flour. And we were thoughorly stuffef