Christmas market at Skansen

Today we decided to go to the christmas market at Skansen. Skansen is an open air museum showing the way of life in different parts of Sweden before the industrial era. They have all kinds of craft shops as well as an open air zoo part. Every year they have a christmas market going on during weekends in December. They sell traditional Swedish crafts and food. I had never been here for the christamas market before and it was really a nice thing to go to. We called our friends that live very close to us here in Sjöstaden that have actually also lived in the US. We decided to take the ferry from Hammarby sjöstad across to Djurgården and Skansen.

Millions of tourists visit Skansen each year but this is really a great place even if you are a local. I am really glad that we came. Actually I got a free entrance ticket when I was on my way to work the other week from one of the big companies giving financial support to the christams market. Then we also had another card that gave us 50% price reduction for the entrance so we only had to pay for half a ticket to get in which is always nice.


Here they had a giant Swedish wooden horse from Dalarna. People working here were dressed in traditional old fashioned clothes.

Here they were making or brewing beer. During the process the grains have to be boiled. I had no idea myself that the process required boiling.

It was really pretty with all the snow. They sold warm glögg (hot, sweet wine with spices) that all Swedes drink during December. It was really good to get some warm spicy wine to keep warm both on the inside and to warm your hands on the small cup. Actually today was much less cold than yesterday. The weather was not as sunny and beautiful as yesterday but on the other hand it was milder and therefore we were able to walk around for a couple of hours. Here C is standing sipping glögg with our friends A and K and their little daughter that is sleeping in her pram.

By the old church there was even a choir that was singing. There were lots of nice events going on.

Many different and neat handicrafts. I just loved the ice sculptures decorated with berries and flowers where they had put candles inside. You could even put them inside as a decoration on your christmas table. They promised they ice would hold for at least four hours as a candle holder. Besides the many different artifacts such as funny and cute knomes there were also a number of different lotteries. There was even this sausage lottery. I guess first price would be a large sausage ring.

There was music and dancing. They even had a stage with a band that was playing the whole day. People were dancing around the big christmas tree holding hands and making a large circle. Dancing around the christmas tree in this way is traditional here in Sweden.

There was quite a lot of people here today but still it was not over crowded.


An old fashioned telephone booth, a sign hanging in front of the black smith´s work shop. The ice stalactites are hanging beautifully from the windows and roof tops. You could even take a horse carridge ride.

It was just beautiful to walk around here. It was just a perfect winter day and I just loved seeing these old and very Swedish enviorments. The red wooden houses with their typical wooden fencing. The snow covering each branch and every tree with frosty snowflakes.



We had a great day together with friends and afterwards we decided to go back and have some more glögg at our friends place. They had made some delish glögg on their own that was just sooo good. We each had a large cup and some tasty sandwiches with bread that we had bought at Skansen. Afterwards we got all warm and tired.