Christmas at Skansen

The celebrations begin on the first of Advent when the traditional Christmas market opens with its market square filled with food, treats and decorations. The bonfires are lit and the Christmas dinner tables are set. All the historical houses and farmsteads are decorated and in the Town Quarter you can meet skilled craftsmen. There will be craft demonstrations and live music in the buildings where the tables also are set for Christmas dinner. Young and old can participate in the dancing games around the Christmas tree at the Bollnäs Square and make their own Christmas decorations in the Christmas workshop.

The Christmas market 
The first Christmas market at Skansen was organized as early as 1903 and has since been an unbroken tradition. Even today, you can feel the atmosphere from the early years and for many, Skansen’s Christmas market is the official start of Christmas. 
On the market there will be crowded with stalls selling traditional sausages, cheeses, handicrafts, spices and essences, Christmas decorations, embroidery, leather goods, Skansen's own handmade ustard, glass, bread and cakes, hand-knitted mittens, sugared almonds, tallows, honey, marzipan, crisp bread, smoked turkey, jams and marmalades, candy, children's books and masses of other irresistible items! 
In the Skansen museum shop you can also find traditional Swedish handicraft and world class design for sale.

The table is set for Christmas 
In several of the Skansen houses and farmsteads, christmas and coffee tables stand waiting and christmas trees have been decorated, illustrating the Yuletide customs of days gone by. Several of the traditional courses on the christmas table are still a part of present-day celebrations. 
In Delsbogården, Oktorpsgården, the Farm Labourer’s Cottage and in Ekshäradsgården, you can see how rich and poor set their Christmas dinner tables. 
In Väla school you can see historically decorated Christmas trees and on Christmas weekends, you can listen to Folk music in front of the fireplace in Delsbogården, Moragården and Älvrosgården.

Artisans Christmas 
In the Town Quarter the shops and workshops are preparing for Christmas. Many of them will be open during the weekends in Advent. Here visitors can learn about trade and crafts that are almost extinct.

Lucia/St Lucy 
Lucia is a popular festival in Sweden. Lucia, dressed in white and with a crown of candles in her hair, sings the Lucia song and serves coffee, buns and gingersnaps. At Skansen the typical Lucia celebration from the 1920's takes place at the Temperance Hall and a more contemporary one in the Nyloftet.

Midwinter solstice celebration 
Fire and ice is the theme for the vinter solstice festival that takes place on the last weekend before Christmas in December. There will be ice sculptors and fire artists working on the Solliden square, an ice bar, charcoal grills fuming, dance performance and music composed for the occasion. New Year´s Eve 
Every New Year's Eve since 1895, Tennyson's Ring Out Wild Bells has been recited at Skansen by a well-known Swede on the stroke of midnight. The Skansen New Year celebrations attract visitors by the thousand and are telecast live. The programme starts at about 23:15 with music and entertainment.

Skansen celebrates Christmas until the beginning of January when Steven walks with his retinue of starboys, singing and joking, for the last time this winter.