We are enjoying a wonderful white Christmas this year in Finland! Despite expectations, usually the first snow – well, the one that sticks around – comes in early January. This year, it started snowing about a week ago and now everything looks like this:

Our Christmas traditions are a blend of Finnish and Italian nowadays. Every Christmas we bake piparit (gingerbread cookies) and joulutortut (Christmas tarts), Finnish style.

At the same time, we would never give up typical Italian delicacies like panettone or pandoro (two kinds of Christmas cakes).

In Finland people decorate houses with Christmas lights early to keep the spirits up, as daylight time becomes shorter – at Christmas here in Southern Finland we get about 5 hours of light every day. However, a typical Finnish family would set up the Christmas tree (a real one) only on Christmas Eve. We sticked to Italian customs and put our artificial tree up on the first days of December.

In perfect culture-blending style, my family celebrated the start of Christmas holidays by sharing pandoro and glögi. Glögi is similar to mulled wine, but several alcohol-free versions are sold here in Finland.

We were sent the brand-new organic glögi from Raikastamo, a brand we appreciate and support. They have created two glögi, dark and white. We especially liked the white one, apple and lime. To best enjoy it, we added almonds and raisins. R loved it so much she drank her in one gulp! The ginger and clove aroma screamed Christmas. White glögi is slightly more acid, but personally I don’t mind at all.

Don’t miss her expression!

We have been long-standing supporters of Raikastamo, long before they started selling in major grocery stores. When only sugar-loaded juices were available, they started producing 100% organic ones. Recently they showed to care about the environment, by producing two special juice flavours for which part of the profit is donated to the protection of the Saimaa ringed seals. If you also want to try the healthy and tasty Raikastamo glögi, you can find them in most K-market grocery stores.

Our family wishes you all a Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year!

We were sent products to test by Raikastamo. Opinions are mine and sincere. Read about my values here.