Poland, Hong Kong and… Sweden – my Christmas experience.

This year’s Christmas turned out to be quite an international holidays for me. As I started working in Swedish company this year, I got to enjoy a Swedish style Christmas as well.

1: Polish Christmas

In Poland, Christmas starts on 24th of December with Christmas Eve dinner. It all starts when you see the first star in the sky and you get to decorate your Christmas tree. Remember the order: lights first, then chains and you finish off with balls and other decorations. Gingerbread cookies or candies very much recommended. Then you start dinner with borsch and fish.

Being in Hong Kong, married into Hong Kong family, it’s not easy to do. We decided to spend the evening with P. having a nicer than usual dinner with mulled wine, watch Mr. Bean and Love Actually.

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2: Hong Kong/UK Christmas

Usually P.’s family would meet over hot pot or just have a regular food dinner to celebrate Christmas, however this year sister-in-law invited us over to her new house and we had a UK-style Christmas dinner on the rooftop. We had turkey and ribs, potatoes, meat balls with cranberry jam, tea with mulled wine and cake.

We organised it as a standing party and the table was like a buffet. It was a perfect arrangement with this many people and so unlike the usual P.-family style family gatherings. Without a doubt, it has been most successful Christmas since we moved back to HK.

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3: Swedish Christmas

My company got invited to Swedish Christmas lunch with cooked ham, three types of herring, smoked salmon and potatoes with meatballs. We had to sing funny drinking songs in Swedish (which I don’t speak) to drink our Snaps, chanting Skol! (Cheers!) before. Dessert was rice pudding that looked like a yogurt with fruit jam. We got back to the office all tipsy and entertained for sure.

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4: Hong Kong company Christmas

Being in Swedish company in Hong Kong doesn’t mean the majority of people is Swedish – it is in fact mostly Hong Kong people, so we had to have a office Christmas as well. We started with Secret Santa with a twist, which would be called Stealing Secret Santa. Choice of gifts was actually interesting to me – towels, cosmetics, towels again, aromatic sticks, etc. One reason would be that our office is mostly girls, but still.

Then we had some Cafe de Coral food, which tasted so much better the moment we opened beers and citron soju we purchased day before on company card. After getting happy tipsy again, we got back to work for the next 3 hours – just enough to sober up and get home to sleep!

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How was your Christmas? Have you experienced some new traditions as well?