In Sweden New Year’s Eve usually is celebrated together with family, closest friends or a big New Year’s Eve Party with a gourmet dinner. Champagne is a must to celebrate the new years first seconds.

Photo: Jim_K-Town

Swedes are very often eating a late New Years dinner (in Sweden normal dinner time is around 5-6pm) spread over the whole evening, which could consist of three courses. Often with some kind of seafood involved: shrimps, crabs or lobster is very common.

However, the New Year’s Eve biggest attractions are the huge fireworks that are displayed everywhere, but concentrated in the big cities. While watching the fireworks which burst out at midnight sharp, Swedes drink champagne. A lot.

Photo: vincen-t

Swedes that has been around for many years have noticed a decrease in those fireworks. Earlier it was much more fireworks at the same time and it was going on for ages after midnight. Last year it was only about 15 minutes after midnight.

One of the reasons for this decrease could be that people under 18 year’s age are not longer allowed to buy fireworks, because of all the accidents that have happened during the years with fireworks involved.

Another reason could be that many pet owners have been complaining that their pets are absolutely terrified during New Years Eve and even have to be put down to sleep or send them out in the countryside, to manage the situation.

Of course, even the economic crises could have some influence, people may think it’s not right to let so much money literally go up in smoke….

The Lifecruiser couple really loves fireworks anyway and we will be outdoors around midnight catching the best view of them somewhere in the Stockholm City.

No, we are not traveling anywhere this year. Last time we did that was in 2008 when we took a last minute trip to the Canary island Tenerife and ended up in a very small village without any fireworks unfortunately! We got to see fireworks on the TV in a pub instead.

Another drawback with trips over the Christmas holidays are the high price, better to save the money for trips when it’s considered low season, to get more out of your money.

There is a record amount of Swedes traveling to the warmth this year for the Christmas Holidays. Never before has the trips being sold out so quickly. Top destinations are Cap Verde, Isla Margerita, Mauritius, Thailand, Gran Canaria, Egypt and Mexico.

Of course it’s the fact that the winter started early this year and has been colder than in 118 years or something, that makes us Swedes wanna escape from all the snow.

I read somewhere that Stockholm’s main airport Arlanda claim to have the unofficial world record of snow clearance for airports: they have a very big machine park and staff, so no need to worry about that at least…

Happy New Year also has been a very popular song by our famous Swedish pop group ABBA from the album Super Trouper from 1980 and it’s still going strong, not only with Swedes, but over the whole world – like all the other ABBA songs.

From Sweden & the Swedes: A Happy New Year toast filled with hope that 2011 will become the best year ever in our lives….

I doubt it though, with the thought of all bad things already happening in the whole world, but you know what they say: hope is the last thing that leaves us humans!

Lifecruiser ♥ Champagne Sweden