If you’ve never been to Stockholm at Christmas, it’s hard to appreciate how profoundly the season’s warm, welcoming festive atmosphere begins in the capital’s windows.
Everywhere from flats above shops to high-rise offices, the soft light of the adventsljusstake (candle bridge) shines from behind the glass, warding off winter’s darkness in traditional, understated Scandinavian style.
When I visited last week, I found the city doused in decorative lights – but there’s no garish glow here, and that elevated feel extends to just about every part of the Yuletide (or “Jul” in Swedish) celebrations around this beautiful northerly city.
Whether it’s the scent of warm, spiced glögg drifting through the cobbled old town, the handmade food, and crafts at weekend Christmas markets, the glittering department store windows, festive harbour cruises or actual Swedish smorgasbords, Christmas in Sweden’s capital keeps tradition at its heart, and left me feeling thoroughly merry and bright. Here is how to soak up all that seasonal Scandi spirit on a festive break in Stockholm.
Get thee to a Christmas market
While Germany’s markets attract the lion’s share of visitors, Stockholm’s varied, refined offering doesn’t disappoint. Forget coloured fairylights, neon rides and tacky mass-produced souvenirs – here it’s all about the tasteful, pared-back Nordic atmosphere.
I started my market tour in the centre of historic Gamla Stan at Stortorget square, where red-timber huts sell Swedish sweets, glass-painted baubles, textiles and jewellery gifts. It’s not the biggest, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in ambience and its location – in the medieval heart of the city, at the foot of the Nobel Museum – is tough to beat.
The city’s largest (and best) Christmas market, meanwhile, is set in the heart of Skansen open-air museum on Djurgården island, which provides a unique rustic, olde worlde atmosphere just minutes from the centre of town, all wood-shingled cabins and live folk music shows.
With a focus on artisanal food, carved wooden crafts (like Sweden’s Dala horse) and textiles hand-embroidered with many a God Jul (Merry Christmas), the only plastic I spotted was the wrapping for the moose sausage I bought. It’s all natural materials here (down to the jute string attached to the tag on my alpaca-wool scarf, handwoven by Susanna, the Swedish lady who sold it to me), and makes a great place to spend some sustainable-tourism kroner.
A few minutes’ walk further into Djurgården brought me to Rosendal Trädgård’s Christmas offering, filled with shops selling everything from delicate paper ornaments (again, no plastic in sight) to silk-screen prints and bulging amaryllis bulbs, set within charming glasshouses festooned in white lights. Time your visit fortuitously and you can buy stylish, one-of-a-kind Scandi creations made by Stockholm’s talented young design students, warming glögg in hand.
Save room for the Julbord
My introduction to the smorgasbord was of the local Christmas variety, a julbord (literally “Christmas table”). You’ll find julbords at many restaurants and hotels across Stockholm in December. They make a perfect one-stop shop if you’re keen to experience traditional yuletide foods and festive Swedish customs.
I was lucky enough to sample the Skansen Julbord (from SEK995/£80), set in one of the outdoor museum’s heritage timber buildings, beautifully decked out with pine boughs and shiny red apples.
A word to the wise, however – don’t (as I did) fill up on pickled and smoked fish, buttered potatoes, rye bread and devilled eggs – and realise too late that this is merely the preamble. The main event (sausages done five ways, crisp pork belly, trademark Swedish meatballs with mountains of lingonberries and creamed kale followed by sweet tarts, biscuits, candied almonds and an enormous amount of cheese) is wheeled out afterwards on trolleys, along with plenty of local snaps, or aquavit, to cleanse the palate.
Let there be lights
How fitting that it’s during the season of giving that Stockholm’s prestigious Nobel organisation bestows its annual prizes – while its coinciding Nobel Week Lights festival adds sophisticated sparkle to the city, with hi-tech 3D projections bringing some of its greatest landmarks to life (a dancer twirling across the imposing redbrick Stadhusset (city hall), for example, a Northern Lights-inspired laser show and a luminous show on the historic Treasury ceiling).
And it’s not just the buildings which are tastefully illuminated – so, too, are the streets, more than 40 of which are transformed into twinkly winter wonderlands until late January, as part of the city’s annual Walk of Lights.
On high-end shopping street Biblioteksgatan, for instance, you’ll find pretty bells strung high above the bustle of shoppers; along heavyweight high-street Drottninggatan, there are giant dazzling pine cones; and on the city’s many bridges, shimmering chandeliers light the way. It’s the warmly lit Christmas window displays at department store Nordiska Kompaniet, however, which really draw the crowds (this year, they pay homage to 80 years of Swedish icon, Pippi Longstocking). You can even hop between them all on the heritage Christmas tram, a magical mode of transport which links these shopping hubs with the museums of Djurgården – and even comes with a display of perfectly wrapped presents inside.
Sail away on a festive archipelago cruise
Harbour cruises are another of Stockholm’s festive trademarks. Some offer Christmassy drinks or shopping pop-ups in port, but best-loved are the ones which serve up julbords of their own as they ply the waters of the Stockholm archipelago. It’s a wonderful way to see the city from a different perspective – whether on a lunchtime sailing (if you want a good view of the city’s skyline before the early dusk draws in), or after dark, when all those twinkling Christmas lights come into their own. A popular option is that run by sightseeing stalwart Stromma, which offers a traditional buffet and, of course, glögg (from SEK755/£60 per person).
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