The 
Finland! Christmas Sauna and The Finnish Christmas Tree!
Christmas Sauna
For the Finns, the sauna has always been a sacred place. Formerly women gave birth in the sauna, and the sauna peace was safeguarded by the sauna elf. In the olden days, time was reserved for the dead as well, the last person to leave the sauna threw a ladle of water on the stones for their benefit. The Christmas sauna was quite early, before the Christmas dinner. Today seven out of ten Finns have a sauna bath on Christmas Eve.
Christmas Tree
The Christmas tree is a Christmas decoration that is really suitable to our densely forested country. A real Christmas tree, smelling of fresh wood, will adorn all but a few Finnish homes every Christmas. The tradition of using lucky trees, jubilee trees and gift trees was rooted in Finland long before the idea of a Christmas tree was very widespread. On festive days a tree, usually a birch or a spruce, was erected in the yard. A green branch or a small spruce, decorated with gifts, was given as a nameday and birthday present.
The Christmas tree in its present form had a breakthrough in Finland in the 19th century. At first it adorned only the homes of the bourgeoisie, later it was adopted by the entire population. The cover picture of a Christmas magazine issued in 1878, "The Village Library Pictorial", showing Martin Luther and his family enjoying their Christmas meal around a table, whose centerpiece was a spruce adorned with candles on its branches and an angel on the top, might have inspired people to get themselves a Christmas tree. The Christmas tree matinees at the elementary school made the Christmas tree well-known in the rural areas. Today, the Christmas tree comes in many shapes, sizes and forms; it may even be - and often is - made of plastic.
In 1924, the first enterprise dedicated to the manufacturing of Christmas tree decorations was founded in Finland. Balls, stars, ribbons, spark sticks, and, naturally, top stars, from the Weiste factory are the preferred decoration for Finnish Christmas trees. Usually both trendy decorations as well as old ones, reflecting the history of the family, are used side by side. The valuable elves and angels made by the children that return to the tree every year will have to cope with an environment dominated by silver, gold or straw, whatever the current rage may be.
Besides the trees in their own homes, Finns can every year admire big ones erected in the yards of supermarkets and in town squares. Among Christmas tree traditions, we note that the forestry students at the University of Helsinki every year give the President of the Republic a Christmas tree, and that the City of Helsinki, as a token of friendship, sends a Christmas tree to the city of Brussels every other year, a tradition unbroken since 1954.
Christian-Charles de Plicque Angel House International Missions Ministries Association Karleby Finland (c) 2009
