swedish christmas

Being in Japan for the winter holidays for the third year in a row, both my wife and I miss, apart from seeing our close relatives of course, the Swedish Christmas smorgasbord. My mother makes the most beautiful meal with all the seasonal delicacies including my favorite, pickled herrings, and I can only hope that next year we will join the table in Sweden. Until then, we decided to do the next best thing – have a Swedish Christmas dinner here.

How do you celebrate Swedish Christmas in Japan? Well, you go to IKEA of course! So my wife made reservations for the three of us to the Swedish Christmas dinner at our local IKEA store, and on Christmas Eve we went there full of anticipation. There was an area of the IKEA restaurant that was corded off, and the tables decorated, and we were seated like in a fancy restaurant, waiting to be served the food. My mouth was watering at the thought of pickled herring and even though we were the only guests in this cordoned off area (which was a pleasant surprise considering the pandemic situation as it is) I kept my image that this is a very attractive and delicious Christmas dinner for the people in Fukuoka.

With expectations high, disappointment was maybe inevitable, but I felt I can get more taste of Sweden from the little international market in the shopping mall than from this Christmas dinner. The salmon was served with grapefruit, there was no herring at all, and the main was half a chicken and some ham that tasted nothing like the Christmas ham we eat in Sweden. The dessert was a piece of rolled cake, with a little strawberry Santa granted, but it seems like they must have forgotten most of the Swedish Christmas traditions when preparing this meal. Enough to say that my wife and I are longing for spending the next Christmas in Sweden even more now.