Christmas time is here, and what other better place to spend Christmas then in the land of the real Santa, excuse me, joulupukki. Sure enough, in Finland time around Christmas is funky for many reasons: it’s the time of longest nights, indulging in food and liquor is at its height and the number of close encounters with the old white-bearded men - yes, there’s more than one, in case you’re still wondering how could one man accomplish all of these deeds (spoil alert: all kids and tourists who believe in Santa, stop reading now!) - is at it’s highest.

It always begins half a year earlier right after the summer solstice on June 22nd when the day is slowly eroded by longer and longer nights. For all the patient people out there this slow and silent takeover culminates on December 21st, the day (or more appropriately, night) when the sun is out only for a few hours. In northern Finland this is taken to such an extreme that sun doesn’t come out for the whole 8 weeks. Please, stop doing whatever you’re doing right now and think about this for a moment: imagine what it would be like to sit in a darkroom for 8 weeks! That’s 48 days of darkness people. Admirable, I must say. At the same time, we in Jyväskylä can thus consider ourselves to be pretty lucky since the day today will be a bit more than four and a half hours long. But darkness is no reason for sadness or depression in the land of night and frozen lakes. Quite the contrary I must say.

Late December is one of the most joyful times for Finns. Surprised? Wonder no more. First, and probably most important is that Christmas is (besides being the day when the baby was born) the most awaited day in the second half of the year. By Christmas six months have already passed since the last official drinking day in Finland, the long forgotten midsummer’s night, and Finns are eager to be able to officially grab their bottles and drink. What better reason to rejoice? And it’s the time when both, consumers and retailers are happy too: consumers of booze, well no real need to explain why, and retailers because now’s the time when they sell one third of year’s worth of booze. But booze makers and retailers aren’t the only ones with smiles on their faces. Around Christmas Finns like to enjoy their pork too. The traditional meal eaten for Christmas is the joulukinkku (the Christmas ham) 7 million kilograms of which was sold this year alone in a nation of 5,5 million people (including babies and the growing number of vegetarians, that is). The profile of the average joulukinkku sold is 9 kg in weight, raw and salted. Bon appétit, or more appropriately, hyvää ruokahalua!

I shall not mention Christmas without its precursor pikkujoulu, or Little Christmas. True, there is only one Christmas, but there are always several pikkujoulut (no exact number is set, but rest assured that there are many). Little Christmases are indispensable joyful social festivities which can begin as early as November and take place until the actual Christmas. These parties are organized by either friends, in schools, clubs, associations, organizations or at workplaces where people gather to eat, socialize and drink. Especially workplace pikkujoulu parties can turn into rather lively and even rowdy events as the consumption of alcohol catalyzes the release of stress and frustration accumulated during the whole year. And alcohol having such a balmy effect on social barriers, pikkujoulu parties are a real nest for promiscuity: it’s the most likely time of the year when both the secretary and the boss get laid. According to statistics 17% of pikkujoulu goers (thus 17% of Finnish population) cheats on their partners on at least one of pikkujoulu parties. It for sure ain’t a negligible amount.

Whenever I meniton drinking, I really mean drinking as Finns do know how to consume excessive amounts of alcohol. The amounts of consumed booze during all of these pikkujoulu parties and the Christmas indulging in alcohol for many people results in such an excess that they proclaim January to be ‘a month without a single drop’ (tipaton tammikuu, as Finns like to refer to it). January thus becomes a month when noses of many slowly begin turning from red to white and to add irony to insult, they even have a term for this slow healing process: nenänvalkaisu.

But even Finnish Christmas would not be complete without the Santas (or joulupukit as they are called around here) themselves. Of course there’s more than one. Come on people, only British tourists who annually come to Rovaniemi (or Korvatunturi, to be precise) in flocks and little children still believe there’s only one and only Santa. And it takes just a glance at the daily papers classified adds section where scores of adds offering Santa service can be found. Yes, there are numerous Santa’s offering to show up on Christmas eve on people’s doorsteps for minuscule monetary compensation. Sad news for all those who pay piles of cash to see ‘The Real Santa’ if you can get one for peanuts. Or even for free (Money for Nothing and Santa for Free anyone), as most Finnish kids get a visit from a relative or a neighbor Santa: kids’ parents dress-up either one of their relatives or the nicest neighbor from their neighborhood as Santa and make them show up on Christmas eve. Although kids do love the presents they get, joulupukki does present a horror experience as well as lots of kids shit their pants when an oddly dressed old man intrudes on their privacy, makes them sing and drinks koskenkorva with their dad. Not funny at all.

Joulupukki being Finnish is thus in many aspects much more polite then his North American colleague. The North American Santa literally invades the family’s house through a chimney, in the middle of the night when everyone is sleeping, and on top of all that he comes completely unannounced. Judging by his actions, he could just as well be labeled as the real cowboy Santa. In comparison, joulupukki comes by personal appointment only and at an exact beforehand mutually agreed time. Now couple this with Finnish punctuality and politeness of ringing the door bell and entering the home of scared and excited children through the door and you get a real gentleman (Sober? As advertised!). Something to cheer about after all. The only thing that makes Finnish joulupukki so incredibly un-Finnish is that all joulupukki are men. Joulupukki job is completely overtaken and monopolized by men. The case here is not that representation of sexes is tilted just a little bit in favor of men, as is the case with many other jobs. It’s worse as women do not even exist in the joulupukki domain. Finnish women, I therefore ask you to stand up for your constitutional rights and fight against this sex-based prejudice in workplace. I thus urge you to immediately contact your minister of labor Tarja Filatov and ask her to instantly act on this matter.

Dear earthlings, I wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Mladen

Yesterday Finns celebrated their 88th independence day. Finland gained independence and ceased to be a part of Russia on December 6th 1917. To commemorate the day Finns lit two blue and white candles on their window sills on the evening of December 6th and some even join the independence day marches in cities across Finland. Finland declared it’s independence soon after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Since Finland’s independence was approved by Bolshevist Russia there was no armed conflict between the now two countries. However, in 1918, Finland experienced a brief but rather bitter civil war. The war was fought between ‘the whites’, who were supported by the Imperial Germany (in Germany they have even already chosen the new Finnish king as the whites decided that Finland should be a kingdom), and ‘the reds’, who were supported by the Bolshevist Russia.

Another integral part of Finnish independence day celebration is the showing of the movie The Unknown Soldier (Tuntamaton Sotilas) - a three-plus hour movie based on a historical novel by Väinö Linna about the winter war between Russia and Finland in the winter of 1939. The winter war was an extremely important moment in the history of Finland when despite being greatly outnumbered, the comparatively small Finnish army beat the Russians. Without a doubt the winter war was an important moment in Finnish history, but it seems like showing The Unknown Soldier is also a good way to remind the nation of their national pride without touching the still rather raw wounds and memories of more distant civil war that followed the proclamation of independence. The civil war beginning in 1918 left an enormous wound in the Finnish nation as just in recent years has their been the beginning of public debates about the war and accompanying events that resulted in tens of thousands dead and hundreds thousands displaced people.

Nevertheless it seems that the most important event celebrating the independence is a large party held in the presidential palace in Helsinki by the president of Finland, currently Tarja Halonen. And in the mind of the Finnish people this party has become synonymous with the independence day itself as it is probably the single most important event for most Finns on that day. Of course there are other events, like the itsenäisyyspäivän juhlajumalanpalvelus (the independence day celebration mass) - the mass in the Helsinki cathedral which was attended by the Finnish president Tarja Halonen although she is not even a member of any church - but everything the people seem to really care about is the itsenäisyyspäivä linnanjuhlat (independence day party in the presidential palace).

For at least a month before the actual party takes place, the yellow press is preoccupied with speculations about who is going to be invited to the party and, of all possible banalities, they are discussing who is going to wear what dress (some celebrities even go so far as casting public polls asking people which dress suits them better literally asking them what they should wear). One can only imagine how long they are going to be writing about what happened at the party itself - who wore what, who came with whom and plethora of other gossip nonsense. As in the today’s papers one could already read that the extreme right-wing member of the Finnish parliament Tony Halme drank a bit too much of the secret punch. Secret what?

Yep, the secret punch: the punch that is served at the itsenäisyyspäivä linnanjuhlat and the recipe for which is a closely guarded secret. One could easily call this the Finnish Coca-Cola recipe as the only thing that is actually known about it is that the beverage is of course alcoholic (come on people, this is Finland after all) and that it contains no more, no less but exactly 12% of alcohol (which again is a very important fact). I wonder if they have the same regime for the only two people who know the recipe as the infamous Coca-Cola company does that these two lucky people who have the privilege of mixing the secret punch at their home parties are not allowed to board the same plane.

Of course, it goes without saying that people spend enormous amounts of money for their clothes, makeup and hairdos all of which are really harshly criticized by Finns. Last year, for instance, the post-party talk of the event was the ‘nipple scandal’ (which the press labeled nothing less then ‘nipplegate’) when a pop singer Jonna Tervomaa wore such a dress that clearly her nipples were visible. The press grabbed it, not really realizing that it might have been a clever albeit stale marketing stunt and that the young chick just wants to sell more CDs. Duh!

Happy belated independence day, Finland!

Mladen

PS: Make sure to visit the gallery for the images from the front and linnanjuhlat.