Posts tagged with "sales"

Must try Must!

Posted by Katja 3 Comments
Dec 29 2011

Think you have tried all soft drinks? If you haven’t tried the Swedish Julmust then you’ve missed out. In Sweden there are two types of Must, Julmust (Christmas Must) and Påskmust (Easter Must). Sure it is brown, sugary and carbonated but definitely not the same as Coca Cola.

The recipe for Must is a special recipe kept under lock and key. Actually, the only thing different between the two types of Must, Påsk-and Julmust is the label on the bottles. So if you’ve forgotten to buy some Julmust or run out during the Christmas festivities, and happen to have a spare bottle of Påskmust left over from Easter then there’s no shame in drinking that up instead. The same goes for Easter and drinking leftover Julmust.

But the shops can’t charge the same price for a Christmas labelled drink when Christmas is over, so the shops sell all the Julmust at dirt cheap prices. Lucky for the Julmust lovers :) People can buy 4 big bottles of Julmust for 25:- or something like on the after Christmas sales.

If you haven’t tried it, check your nearest IKEA shop or other Ethnic Food store, if you’re lucky they’ll stock it.

The Days Between

Posted by Transparent Language 1 Comment
Dec 28 2008

Between what? Christmas and New Year’s, naturally!

I don’t know about you, but I am positively glad that Christmas is finally over. No more coming up with excuses to avoid eating lutefisk (lutfisk in Swedish, but “lutefisk” in English, OK?). Yay! And no more julskinka (Christmas ham). Yay! (The one we were treated to this year was particularly salty, more so than in previous years.) Unfortunately now all the leftover julskinka will go on sale and that means that my neighbor will buy about as many as her freezer can hold. And then she will keep inviting us over for dinner. Arrgh… She’s a sweet, older lady, and she lives alone and I just don’t have the heart to say “no” to her. So, we will politely go, bring cookies or a pie with us, and be subjected to julskinka until about Easter.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about today. I wanted to talk about mellandagarna.
Why? Because if you are shopoholic like me, this is a very important time of the year, indeed. Why? Sales!!!

You see, the days between Christmas and New Year’s are called mellangarna, which literally means “the between days.”

  • mellan – middle, between

and

  • dag (def. dagen, pl. dagar, pl.def. dagarna) – day

Depending on how many weekdays there are during this time, it’s traditional to use up your remaining vacation/holiday days off during this period. Otherwise, depending on your company’s policy, you may lose them when the year ends. So, some people sit at home and rest after the excesses of julbord, some people book a sunny getaway to the Canary Islands or elsewhere. And some people, like me, go shopping!

You see, mellandagarna is also synonymous with after-Christmas sales. And we like sales, right? Especially in this unhappy economy.

So, now in Swedish:

  • Mellandagarna är traditionellt stora rea-dagar.


Hmmm… I wonder why I suddenly need a new pair of winter boots. Hmmm…

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