Canutus Day

Now the happy Christmas time is over..
In earlier times Canutus Day was the end of the Christmas time in Sweden, Finland och Norway. We go on celebrating Christmas until Canutus Day January 13. It is the eighth day after Epiphany, in older times all great feasts had an "octave" of eight days.
In old times they often in the country villages had a Canutus dance, especially the young people liked to end the Christmas celebratings in that way. Sometimes the feasting was very wild...
Nowadays in many places they make a common party for children in Child Care Centres, communities or clubs.

Now I want to tell about how we did in my family when I was a child long time ago. Our Christmas tree always was decorated with paper folded caramels, paper bags filled with sweets, big ginger bisquits and apples.



Those caramels and special bags we had made at a family evening some days before Christmas.
The bags were woven in coloured paper in the shape of a heart.





When I was a child we always had a childrens party at Canutus Day or just around that day "the robbing of the Christmas Tree". Then we danced around the tree, singing In Swedish

Word for word translation,
"Now Happy Christmas time is over,
the Christmas tree is thrown away.
But next year again he is coming,
our old friend, that is what he promised."

One child in the ring was blindfolded, had a stick in hand, and when we stopped dancing after the song, the blindfolded child pointed in the tree trying to find something of the sweets. The goal was his/hers. And then we danced singing again with the next child and so on until all edible thing had been pointed out. The guests got a bag to keep their robberies and carry them home (if they were not eaten up before leaving...)