So it is December 24th here in Rovaniemi, also known to Finns as “Christmas.” In the U.S. most of us who celebrate Christmas celebrate on the 25th though many have the tradition of opening presents on the 24th. In my family we always grew up waking up on the 25th of December with Santa Claus arriving the night before. Maybe since Santa is from Finland this is his first stop so they get the party started early. Not sure the reason. But, in Finland, today is Christmas so my posts today are all about what Christmas is in Finland. I’ll begin with breakfast.

I started my morning at around 7:30am to coffee and LOADS of pastries. My boyfriend’s mother holds off on putting out all the great treats until Christmas morning as well as all the great candy- probably because they would eat everything before the actual holiday arrived. You can see in the photo below some of the usual pastries we have as well as the full candy containers on the kitchen table- as though Santa made a little delivery in the middle of the night…these were not there when I wen to sleep :)

Traditional Christmas Morning Food- pastries

In addition to the pastries there is an AWESOME cake that I’m not sure if it is traditional but I’ve had it for every Christmas here so for me it is traditional. Kind of a cinnamon type cake and oh so very good! It is served with vanilla sauce. Oh, yummy. We’ll eat this all day!

Traditional Christmas Morning Food- Cake Traditional Christmas Morning Food- Cake with sauce

Around 10am, breakfast was served. A traditional Finnish breakfast consists of pouridge/ rice outmeal, also known in Finnish as riisi puuro. Below are photos of the process from bag to bowl. First you combine the rice with water and whole milk and boil it in a pot (three photos below)

Traditional Christmas Morning Food- puuro bag Traditional Christmas Morning Food- whole milk for puuro Traditional Christmas Morning Food- puuro in pot cooking

You then have the option of serving it with either plum raisin sauce or milk along with cinnamon and I add a little sugar in mine. The left photo as the plum raisin sauce and the right one has milk. The bottle of the plum raisin sauce is also included.

Traditional Christmas Morning Food- puuro with plum raisin sauce Traditional Christmas Morning Food- puuro with milk Traditional Christmas Morning Food- plum raisin sauce

And, the last item, new to me this year, don’t think I’ve had them before- Ham and cheese rolls (ses photo below). Pretty good, not full of flavor but a good tasty treat.

Traditional Christmas Morning Food- ham rolls

And that’s breakfast. Stay tuned for more food and activities throughout the day as celebrate Christmas 2008 from Rovaniemi, Finland!