Risalamande, luumukiisseli, malt og appelsin, gløgg, julmust, Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul, Home Alone and The Nightmare before Christmas are dishes, drinks and movies that are part of the Christmas season traditions in the Nordic Region. Nordregio, with a little help from Santa, has done a very thorough study across the Nordic Region on Christmas traditions and one observation is quite striking: the Nordic Christmas traditions are very country-specific and not integrated at all!
Indeed, zooming-in at the regional level, there is not much variation within a country on how people spend their Christmas. In Norway for instance, pepparkakor and Julmust seem to be quite popular in all the regions, but there are differences among the favourite movies: Home Alone is the most searched movie in seven regions, including the newest administrative region of Trøndelag. The eight other regions of Norway, as well as Gotland and Österbotten, prefer Kalle Anka to accompany pepparkakor and Julmust.