We don’t say christmas present over here, we say julklapp, more or less Yule knock. That’s because when giving presents here in the beginning it was meant to be (I’ve heard) either a prank or an anonymous present. On christmas eve they didn’t lock the door and put new straw behind the door and when someone came with a present they knocked on the door and tossed in a present that then landed on the new and soft straw. So they named it a Yule knock 🙂

Later on when present giving became more common it was the Yule buck that delivered the presents. The goat has always been important back in the days so for people living back then it wasn’t an odd thing to come with the presents. There are different explanations to whom this buck was, most seems to think he was supposed to be one of the Norse god Thor’s goats, the ones he flew up in the sky in his chariot and created thunder but when I was young a by that time really old lady told me that it was the devils duty to do good one day every year.

Well Sinterklaas and Santa Claus started to turn up down in Europe so I think they wanted to be up to date here in Sweden as well so suddenly the Yule Gnome came to life 🙂 My guess is that since the gnome was a well known being here since way back in history and was known to help the farms they were living in, perhaps not happily or joyfully to be honest, so why not combine him and these other present givers. Not totally though, our gnome was still very short, mostly dressed in grey or green, except for the caps, they were almost always red (old christmas card)  click on the red text and You’ll see what it could look like.  . I doubt it was supposed to be someone one actually met because to be honest how many small people could quickly and swiftly move around to each place during one day.

However if one look at really old christmas cards this is how they were depicted. Also he never flew around with reindeers up in the sky, he either came walking with a goat (the same one apparently as the one previous delivering the presents himself) that pulled a small sled filled with packages or with a horse also pulling a sled filled with presents. It didn’t take long though until he grew taller and I guess that’s when he started to visit homes and hand out the presents himself. I have no idea to why but he always came on Christmas eve instead of Christmas day. Also for Your information, The Yule Gnome lives far north in Swedish Lappland, not Finnish Lappland as the Finns believe  🙂 🙂 🙂 even though they have been far better in spreading that nonsense around the world 🙂 🙂 🙂 So now the kids can visit the Gnome both in Sweden and Finland and I must admit from what I know about the Finnish one it’s far superior towards our place.

The Yule Gnome has evolved to something closer to Santa now days, he has fatten up some, says ho ho ho and it looks like he’s always wearing an all red clothing and he never comes down the chimney even though most kids now days do believe he comes by reindeer 🙂 instead hi visits the children in their homes. I have seen one comming by horse but either he comes walking or in a car 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now days even Mrs Gnome visits the children, turns out that Mr Gnome was a bit too happy to have a schnapps at every place he went to so by the time he finally reached the last homes he was pretty drunk, no one understood him and the children refused to see him 🙂 🙂 🙂 Mrs Gnome isn’t that keen on schnapps thankfully 🙂 🙂 🙂

So never mix up the Yule Gnome with our old gnome, All he requires is a bowl with rice porridge at Yule eve night. They are rare now days though but if You do have a stable or barn place the bowl in there so the risk of him burning down You place is lower 🙂

Have a great day!