The season is here when everyone starts waiting for the snow to come, not the least after a very dark November. The snow just makes all the Christmas lights more beautiful. Stockholm gets a makeover when the Holidays come. Decorations start to show up all over the place and there are candles in almost every window.

The longest night of the year is December 13th. This is when we celebrate Saint Lucia. The celebration of Lucia is a big event in Sweden. Everywhere you can find choirs singing, all dressed in white with crowns of candles in people’s hair!! We drink “glogg” which is a kind of warm wine seasoned with cinnamon, cardamom and cloves along with our ginger snaps and saffron buns! These are very important ingredients to the Swedish Christmas.
It is also our custom to have a big Christmas smorgasbord – julbord in Swedish – with family and friends. We will have this kind of celebration with our current students on December 10th. It is a great occasion to celebrate the holidays and wish our students farewell as they prepare to return home. December 10th is also known as the Nobel Day as it is the day the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony takes place. During the week the Nobel Laureates have a busy program, among other things lecturing at Stockholm University.

On behalf of the Program, I would like to wish a Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah to all our students, alumni, and friends.

Cecilia Olsson
Director