Julotta and Dancing Around the Christmas Tree

"The trip to julotta."
This is an Ilon Wikland illustration for Astrid Lindgren's Jul i Bullerbyn. 

We had to go to bed kind of early on Christmas Eve because in the morning, on Christmas Day, we had to get up at 3 o’clock so we could go to julotta. Julotta was something special too. The service started first thing in the morning on Christmas day.  Before we left, everybody got some hot chocolate and sandwiches. I guess the grown-ups maybe drank coffee. Then we got all bundled up in regular outdoor coats, and on top of that we something they called overcoats. They were thick big coats because it was cold to sit in a sled for an hour. Then we piled into the sled and wrapped up in lap robes. Those lap robes had wool on the inside. Margaretha and Lennart went in front with Mama and Papa. Mama probably held Lennart on her lap, so he could get under the lap robe and get some warmth from being next to her. The rest of us sat down in the bottom of the sled. We sometimes crawled down underneath the lap robes and got warm. We had to get to church an hour ahead of when the service started if we wanted to be able to all sit together as a family. The church was always full to the brim. They had to put in extra chairs. Everybody around, even those who otherwise had nothing to do with church, everyone came to julotta. There was only candlelight at julotta. In Sweden, it’s called levandelus, living light. I think that’s a real good name for it because candles do look more alive than electric lights do. At the start of julotta, the organist who had a beautiful tenor voice would sing, “O Helge Natt” (“O Holy Night”). Then everyone stood up and sang, “Vår hälsad sköna morgonstund” (“We greet you beautiful morning”). I’d often get shivers down my spine. I thought it was so beautiful. Of course, there was other extra music too.

From right to left: Mom, Sara, Margaretha, and 
Maja Karlsson, the girl who had the Christmas 

Well, we had fun going home from julotta too. It was a tradition to have sort of a race home against the Anderssons i Mellangården—The saying was that whoever made it home first after julotta would get their harvest in first next fall. Well, one year Dad had a new horse called Mandel, and Mandel was such a runner. He loved to run, so Dad thought he was going to win that year. Going home, as usual we had the horses up at Samuelson’s, so we walked up there. When we were getting in the sled at Samuelson’s, the Anderssons went by, Henning and Tant Anna and Lydia and Farbror Andersson. You can imagine how they waved going by us, thinking they were going to win. Well, that year Dad had Mandel, and he pulled a little trick too. We took a short cut across the lake. It had been really cold that year before Christmas, so the lake was frozen solid. So it turned out that as we were getting out of the sled by our barn, here came the Anderssons thinking they were first home, but really we had won. Oh how us kids giggled and thought that was fun. And Henning said, “How did you do that?!” Dad smiled and told them.

Sara Boberg Bäck

Well, after julotta, on Christmas Day, all we did was eat and take care of the animals. It was a really holy day, so there was no big play or making noise. You stayed inside and you kept still. There were two days in the year like this: Christmas Day and Good Friday. In Swedish, Good Friday is called Long Friday and when I was a kid I thought that was a good name for it. It seemed to be the longest day, like it would never end. At least on Christmas, we still had good food and you had some kind of presents to look at.

The next day then was the Second Day of Christmas when we celebrated Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr. There was a church service that day too, but when we were little kids, we didn’t usually go. We went when we were older. That was a time to visit relatives or neighbors. Somebody always had a party to go to that day.

Then we also celebrated Trettondagjul or thirteen days after Christmas. That was also a holiday. After that then, kids sometimes had parties. They were called julgransrisning. You took all the decorations off the Christmas tree. Maja Karlsson always had a big Christmas party, a Julgransrisning, they used to call it. It was like a final party for the Christmas tree. They would hang baskets made of paper with candy or nuts in them. Her parents had the store, so they had those kinds of things available. Even oranges. All us kids and more, they had quite a few kids invited. We had refreshments with cookies and all good things. Sometimes the kids came from Herrefall and they had so far to walk so their mother came with them. Tant Ädla was such a good singer; it was so much fun when she came. We would dance around the Christmas tree, and she was running around and singing. Then we could pick down one basket of each kind and take home. That party was one of the highlights of the Christmas season as far as we were concerned.

Left to right -- Maja Karlsson, Mom, Margaretha, Sara, (I don't know! Hjälp!) and Lennart