Sunday 14 December 2008

FOURTEENTH


Today I will tell you about a Scandinavian Christmas tradition,
seeing that yesterday was
Santa Lucia day.

There is another common symbol to the scandinavian christmas and it is that of a straw goat.

They have a tradition of making goats out of straw and using them to decorate
the house at Christmas time.


Some believe that it comes originally from Norse mythology, in which Thor’s chariot was drawn by two goats
Tannginost and Tanngrisnir

Nowadays, it is customary for one of the adults to dress up as a Christmas gnome (tomte) and deal out the presents, but apparently, before this became the custom,
someone would dress up as a goat to do so.


There are other stories told about Christmas goats; one says that there was a game played, whereby people would make a large straw goat and attempt to hide it in their neighbors’ house, who, upon discovering it, were obligated to hide it in another house without being discovered, and so on.

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