Tomte Coloring Pages
Stories say every Swedish farm had its own tomte, a tiny old man who kept watch over the animals and the family while everyone slept. His name comes from the Swedish word for the plot of land a house stands on, so a tomte belongs to one particular farm.
These days Swedish children know Santa Claus as the Jultomte... the Christmas tomte.
Jump to: The Poem | Farm Spirit to Santa | The Yule Goat | Farm and Forest Friends | Swedish Christmas Customs
A Poem on a Winter Night
In 1881 the poet Viktor Rydberg wrote a poem called Tomten, set on a freezing midwinter night. Everyone on the farm is asleep except the tomte, who tiptoes around checking on the animals. Then he stops to look up at the sky and puzzles over a riddle he can't solve: where does everything come from, and where does it all go?
From Farm Spirit to Santa
The poem was printed with pictures by a young artist named Jenny Nyström, and her tomte is the one Sweden still pictures today, with a kind face under a red cap and a long white beard.
The story goes that the tomte she drew for an earlier Christmas story looked so fierce that Rydberg asked her to soften him, and her own father posed as the model. Swedes later nicknamed her the mother of the Jultomte.
One of Jenny Nyström's paintings shows a tomte striding through the snow with a flaming torch in one hand and a basket of presents in the other.
A tomte who hands out gifts was a big change! Up until those paintings, the old farm tomte was better known for getting a bit angry (and making a mess in the barn) when nobody thanked him for looking after the farm animals. The farm tomte were said to like a bit of porridge on Christmas Eve as a thank you! (These days, Santa prefers cookies)
Nyström painted countless Christmas postcards, and one classic greeting on them is God Jul, which means Merry Christmas in Swedish (say it "good yool"). Her tomte sometimes turns up outside a snowy window, peeking in at the family inside.
In Sweden, Santa Claus is called the Jultomte, which just means the Christmas tomte. Tradition says he knocks on the door on Christmas Eve and asks if there are any good children in the house.
The Yule Goat
The tomte wasn't Sweden's first gift bringer. Until Nyström made her Christmas paintings, the yule goat brought gifts to Swedish kids.
A Yule goat had the job for centuries, and in some homes a father would dress up as the goat, knock on the door and hand out the presents.
I totally want to get Darren to dress up like a goat...
Looking after animals was always the tomte's job, so a goat at his side makes sense. Nyström sometimes painted one beside him, a nod to the goat that was handing out gifts long before he was.
Swedes still make Yule goats from straw, tied up with ribbons, and hang little straw goat decorations on their Christmas tree. The town of Gävle builds a giant one every Advent that's around 13 metres tall, which is higher than most houses.
Farm and Forest Friends
Stories say the horse was the tomte's favourite animal. You could tell which one by how healthy it looked and by the braids that appeared in its mane overnight. Undoing those braids was considered very bad luck!
Sweden has its own farm dog, the Swedish Vallhund. Vallhund means herding dog, and its short legs help it nip a cow's heels and duck away before she can kick. Some Vallhunds are born with a curly tail and some with a stubby one.
Swedes call a moose an älg, and in British English it's an elk, so you'll see both names. About two thirds of Sweden is forest, so a moose wandering past a farm wouldn't surprise anyone. And all the animals close to the farm got some loving care from the farm tomte at night.
Astrid Lindgren, who also wrote Pippi Longstocking, turned Rydberg's poem into a picture book called The Tomten. In her second book, The Tomten and the Fox, a hungry fox sneaks toward the hen house on Christmas Eve, and the tomte knows how hungry a fox can get on a freezing night.
Swedish Christmas Customs
The first Swedish Christmas trees were lit with real candles and hung with fruit and sweets. Later people started making their own ornaments from straw and paper, which is why straw goats and stars still hang on Swedish trees.
On Christmas Eve Swedish farmers hung out the last sheaf of grain from the harvest as a treat for the birds. It's called a julkärve, and the saying goes that if lots of birds come to eat it, next year's harvest will be a good one.
A wooden horse painted with flowers is a classic Swedish gift. It's called a Dala horse after Dalarna, the region where it began as a carved toy, and plenty of the early ones weren't painted at all.
Nisse, Gnomes and Elves
The Nisse
Over the border in Denmark and Norway the same farm spirit is called a nisse. He's a lot like the tomte and the Danes tell a story about a farmhand who forgot his Christmas porridge...
Garden Gnomes
The modern garden gnome owes a lot to these Scandinavian farm spirits, from his pointy cap to his long beard. In winter some of them stay warm with a mug of hot chocolate instead of porridge.
Christmas Elves
Santa's elves have a different job. They stay at the North Pole making toys instead of guarding a farm, and they wear curly shoes while they work.