Yesterday we had the day of Nuutti in Finland (13th of January). You know Nuutti, the bad guy, who takes away the Christmas according to Finnish proverb. So when saying godbye to Christmas I once again went thorugh the Christmas traditions and merry Christmas time in my head. And a tradition, that means lot to my family came to my mind. So here’ s a short post about it.
I have blogged earlier about the Christmas peace and Eating on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve after noon and the declaration of Christmas peace my family sits down for rice porridge. You can find from the later post, how the porridge is made and served. There is also mention about the almond. But I did not open up the tradition behind it.
Person, who finds the almond, shall have good luck the upcoming year. But where does this kind of tradition originate from? The Finns have been finding almonds from their porridge since the mid 19th century. The tradition came from Sweden. Both rice and almonds were really expensive delicacies in Finland back then. Both needed to be imported. That’s why it is believed the almond was chosen to bring good luck. Prior to almond it had been a bean or a coin.
The habbit of putting something (a foreign object) during Christmas celebration to food to bring good luck is a very old tradition and known at least all over Europe. Already the Romans and the Greeks put coins and beans to food for good luck.
:)
