Dec 24

Dec 24 It's not Christmas Eve in Sweden without a visit from Donald Duck

Don’t even think about calling your Swedish friend between 3-5pm on Christmas Eve, because like most of the country they’ll be watching Donald Duck cartoons. In 1959 at 3pm, TV station TV1 showed the Disney special “From All of Us to All of You” or, “Kalle Anka och hans vanner onskar God Jul” (“Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Merry Christmas”), and the station has been repeating the show each year since.

According to Slate’s Jeremy Stahl who witnessed the event first hand with his girlfriend’s Swedish family, “The show’s cultural significance cannot be understated. You do not tape or DVR Kalle Anka for later viewing. You do not eat or prepare dinner while watching Kalle Anka.”

Families plan their entire Christmas around Kalle Anka and every member of the family is expected to come together to watch in silence - apart from a few well-rehearsed chuckles.

The show itself is hosted by Jiminy Cricket, and consists of about a dozen Disney cartoons from the 1930s to the 1960s - few of which have anything to do with Christmas.

A host always presents the show live, playing the role of Uncle Walt in the original Walt Disney Presents series. And TV1 is contractually obligated to include a snippet from a recent Disney-produced movie.

But apart from that, the show remains unchanged from its original 1959 airing - which of course includes that oh so wholesome classic Disney racism.

Bonus Bubblegum

Christmas Eve in Sweden is known as Julafton and is just as important as Christmas Day. Dinner on Christmas Eve is also very Swedish, consisting of dried fish, herring salad, ham, boiled potatoes, pork sausage, spiced bread, and plenty of sweets.

At Christmas, the traditional dish is Risgryngrot, a special porridge cooked with a single almond. Assuming they don’t choke, the person who finds the almond in his or her bowl gets to make a wish.

Sweden doesn’t celebrate Christmas with Santa Claus, but rather with Tomte - a Christmas gnome. Although you could be forgiven for thinking it was Santa since Tomte has a white beard, red robes and distributes presents from his sack.

Did Finland once ban Donald Duck because he was unmarried and didn’t wear pants?

In a word, no. While it’s a great story to tell, it comes from a piece of political slander. In 1977 Helsinki Liberal Party representative Markku Holopainen proposed swapping Donald Duck comics for the city’s youth centres in favour of sport and hobby magazines. His political opponent went to the press with an exaggerated story about banning Donald Duck and soon it found its way into those ‘fun segments’ you get at the end of news stories.

Image credits: "Donald Duck | Kalle Anka" by Länsmuseet Gävleborg is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0