My second winter as a student in Oulu, I spent the entire Christmas break with my adopted friendship family, the Hannus family. When they picked me up from my student apartment complex near the university, I was ready to go. It had mostly cleared out for the break time with students scattering around the world, until studies resumed again in January.

After driving North for about 25 minutes, we reached Haukipudas, where they lived, along the Kiiminkijoki river. This was a white Christmas and the yard was covered in a thick wintry blanket of heavy snow. I remember feeling so cozy in the room they set up for me.

I was very eager to participate in Anneli’s baking plans for the days ahead. Together we baked joulutorttuja (Finnish prune tarts) in a style called “Vuotsantortut”, which is named for an area in Eastern Finland near the boarder and a bread with seeds and raisins called Lusianlimppu that Anneli had received emailed to her from her sister-in-law. I have made those tarts several times since (including teaching a workshop just this week for the Finnish American Cultural Activities group who really enjoyed them). I haven’t baked the Luisianlimppu since, but plan to this year.

Aside from baking, I also did a lot of knitting during that time. Anneli was also a good knitter and gave me a really nice bright pair of knit socks made with wool that had been infused with aloe, so they were really soft. I also looked through a lot of her magazines while I was there and took pictures of several sets of directions in Finnish for making socks, mittens, and interesting scarves.

We spent the morning of Christmas Eve at their relative’s house experiencing the whole Joulupukki visit and socializing over treats there, bringing along some tarts to share. That evening, we brought a few candles to the cemetary nearby, where some of Kari’s relatives were buried. It was so peaceful there and the candle light reflecting off all of the snow really helped brighten up the darkness. I remember thinking - I totally trained for this experience as a child at Salolampi, when we brought candles to the sand box “graveyard” during our Joulu simulation evening program in July. During the rest of the break time together, we also visited several of their friends’ houses and also spent time with Jorma! The daylight hours were short, the scenery was frosty, and the amount of coffee consumed at each house we visited no matter the time of day was unmeasurable.

When it was time to go back to studying, I was so happy to have had this time together with Anneli and Kari at Christmas - Joulu in Oulu. I really appreciated getting to see how they celebrated during this time of year and to do it all in Finnish. I have added a few of the things we did together during the season to my own Christmas celebrations.

Have you been able to spend a Christmas in Finland? If so, what did you do? How did that differ from how you spend Christmas other places? Do you have a favorite recipe that you like to bake around this time of year? Share below in the comments!