A Christmas sauna — a joulusauna

Mauri, my Finnish correspondent when I was writing Some Like it Hot: The Sauna, Its Lore and Stories*, told me one of his family traditions was a Christmas sauna, a joulusauna. It was a custom I had never heard of. They chose the day before Christmas Eve, but noted that others might go to sauna the morning of Christmas Eve or even Christmas Day itself.

Christmas came to Finland only about 700 years ago — the tradition of a sauna at midwinter has been around for longer than Christianity has. Like other countries, when Christmas arrived, it added existing midwinter customs which had existed for thousands of years before. Throughout much of Scandinavia, the old beliefs held that on the night of midwinter, the dead returned to the earth, and were appeased with a sauna. Many still keep the sauna warm and throw another ladle of water on the rocks to make it comfortable for when their ancestors, elves or gnomes visit.

A different reason saunas were taken Christmas Eve Day might date to the years when most Finns lived in the country and did heavy farm or logging work. At Christmas, they could take time to be with families, a celebration in itself to relax and eat when time with loved ones was the biggest gift of all.

On a normal day in Finland, Mauri said, one would go to the sauna during the evening. However, on the 24th of December, as the myth goes, the spirits of the dead return after sunset for their sauna. So, to make room for them, Finns take their joulusaunas early in the day, or the day before, like his family.

In fact, millions of saunas are heated in Finland on Christmas Eve, and up to 70% of the population of Finland will enjoy a joulusauna on Christmas Eve. Public saunas even have special Christmas Eve and Christmas Day hours for patrons who don’t have their own saunas.

What a great way to get ready for the celebrations — to get totally clean and to sweat out all the obligations and lists that start taking precedence. And as many rural women in northern climates gave birth in saunas, being the only place with water and heat, it’s the perfect time to contemplate our Savior’s birth, in its own humble location.

My next post will describe another unique Finnish tradition — Christmas peace.

Nikki

* Buy a copy of Some Like It Hot: The Sauna, Its Lore and Stories from the publisher, North Star Press of St. Cloud, Minnesota, or from local booksellers.For a personally inscribed copy, send $20 (which includes tax and shipping costs) to: Nikki Rajala, P.O. Box 372, Rockville, Minnesota 56369.

Celebrating Joulu (Yule) in Finland

Like most countries, the Finns enjoy special traditions at Christmastime, called Joulu. Typically, they celebrate on Christmas Eve, with festive meals, gifts from Santa and worship.  

On Christmas Eve, families might visit cemeteries to place candles on the gravestones and then attend worship services. Imagine the beauty of flickering candlelight illuminating the dark (the sun sets around 3:15 p.m.).

The Finnish Santa Claus is called joulupukki. He skips the roof-and-chimney routine — instead he knocks on the front door to deliver Christmas gifts, which then are put under the tree.

Joulupöytä is Christmas dinner, (translated “Yule” table). A traditional meal might feature ham with mustard, various presentations of fish — from gravlax (a smoked salmon) to fish roe, lutefisk and herring (often pickled), casseroles of root vegetables (like rutabagas or carrots) and mixed beetroot salad. The traditional beverage is mulled wine, glögi. 

Desserts include mixed fruit soup, rice pudding (whoever gets the hidden almond opens their gifts first), the thin, very brittle ginger cookies called piparkakut, and prune jam pastries, the joulutorttu. 
 

But before the meal, the worship service and the gift-giving, they enjoy one more tradition — the Christmas sauna. That’s the subject of my next post.

Nikki

When in Finland — Giuseppi actually tries a sauna

Giuseppi was impressed with the idea of sauna. Elsewhere in his lengthy account, he describes partaking.  After all “When in Rome, ...” which he translates to Finland. 

“The heat of the vapour rose to 50 degrees of Celsius; at first I felt a violent oppression, and had it augmented I believe, naked as I was, I should have made my escape from the bath, but forcing myself to persevere, I gradually became accustomed to it, and after some time was able to support a heat of 65 degrees.”

Three cheers for Giuseppi! He made it past the first heat wave, all the way up to 65 degrees (though sauna fans aiming for the 90s and 100s might not be impressed). He never reveals, however, whether he liked it, or he noticed its health benefit. 
 

Nikki

Read more fun sauna lore: 
To buy a personally signed copy of Some Like It Hot: The Sauna, Its Lore and Stories from me, send $20 (which includes tax and shipping costs) to: 
Nikki Rajala, 
P.O. Box 372,
 Rockville, Minnesota 56369.  

You can also purchase one from the publisher, North Star Press of St. Cloud, Minnesota,by clicking on the link, or from local booksellers.

 

Giuseppi Acerbi, part 2

(Giuseppi liked to throw open the door and surprise the sauna bathers, but could hardly manage to

stick around.)

“My astonishment was so great that I could scarcely believe my senses, when I found that those people remain together, and amuse themselves for the space of half an hour, and sometimes a whole hour, in the same chamber, heated to the 70th or 75th degree of Celsius. The thermometer, in contact with those vapours, became sometimes so hot, that I could scarcely hold it in my hands.”

(Note to self: bring gloves to hold onto the thermometer!)

“The Finlanders, all the while they are in this hot bath, continue to rub themselves, and lash every part of their bodies with switches formed of twigs of the birch-tree. In ten minutes they become as red as raw flesh, and have altogether a very frightful appearance.”

(Check the birch switches in his etching — they look wicked! And notice that one woman tends the fire and water buckets, fully dressed.) 

“In the winter season they frequently go out of the bath, naked as they are, to roll themselves in the snow, when the cold is at twenty and even thirty degrees below zero. They will sometimes come out, still naked, and converse together, or with anyone near them, in the open air.

“If travelers happen to pass by while the peasants of any hamlet, or little village, are in the bath, and their assistance is needed, they will leave the bath, and assist in yoking, or unyoking, and fetching provender for the houses, or in any thing else without any sort of covering whatever, while the passenger sits shivering with cold, though wrapped up in a good sound wolf’s skin. There is nothing more wonderful than the extremities which man is capable of enduring through the power of habit.

“The Finnish peasants pass thus instantaneously from an atmosphere of 70 degrees of heat to one of 30 degrees of cold, a transition of a hundred degrees, which is the same thing as going out of boiling into freezing water! and what is more astonishing, without the least inconvenience; while other people are very sensibly affected by a variation of but five degrees, and in danger of being afflicted with rheumatism by the most trifling wind that blows.

“Those peasants assure you, that without the hot vapour baths they could not sustain as they do, during the whole day, their various labours. By the bath, they tell you, their strength is recruited as much as by rest and sleep. The heat of the vapour mollifies to such a degree their skin, that men easily shave themselves with wretched razors, and without soap.

“Had Shakespeare known of a people who could thus have pleasure in such quick transition from excessive heat to the severest cold, his knowledge might have been increased, but his creative fancy could not have been assisted.”

“Oh! who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking of the frosty Caucasus?
Or wallow naked in December snow,
By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat?”

 

Nikki

An early Italian traveler discovers the sauna

In the late 1790s, a 25-year-old Italian man, Giuseppi Acerbi, was at a loss as to what to do. Interested in natural history and exploration (and composing music), he decided to see the world — and traveled to northern climates. (Perhaps it’s like having a gap year following high school
graduation before entering college.) 

When he returned home, he published a two-volume account of his adventures, Traveler through Sweden, Finland and Lapland to the North Cape in the years 1798 and 1799.Travelogues were as popular then as now.

In Chapter XXII, he gets to the topic I’m most interested in — sauna.

“… The use of Vapour-Baths among the People at large, and especially among the Peasantry — Some Particulars of this Manner of bathing — The extraordinary Transitions from Heat to Cold which the Finlanders can endure.”

“Another particular that appeared very singular among the customs of the Finns, was their baths, and manner of bathing. Almost all the Finnish peasants have a small house built on purpose for a bath: it consists of only one small chamber, in the innermost part of which are placed a number of stones, which are heated by fire till they become red.

“On these stones, thus heated, water is thrown, until the company within be involved in a thick cloud of vapour. In this innermost part, the chamber is formed into two stories for the accommodation of a greater number of persons within that small compass; and it being the nature of heat and vapour to ascend, the second story is, of course the hottest.

“Men and women use the bath promiscuously, without any concealment of dress, or being in the least influenced by any emotions of attachment. If, however, a stranger open the door, and come on the bathers by surprise, (He’s speaking of himself here.) the women are not a little startled at his appearance; for, besides his person, he introduces along with him, by opening the door, a great quantity of light, which discovers at once to view their situation, as well as forms.

“Without such an accident they remain, if not in total darkness, yet in great obscurity, as there is no other window besides a small hole, nor any light but what enters in from some chink in the roof of the house, or the crevices between the pieces of wood of which it is constructed.”

(Examine Giuseppi’s etching for the size of the sauna, the fire chamber, the benches, the switches...  Even if he couldn’t handle the heat, he found ways to enjoy the process.)

“I often amused myself with surprising the bathers in this manner, and I once or twice tried to go in and join the assembly; but the heat was so excessive that I could not breathe, and in the space of a minute at most, I verily believe, must have been suffocated. I sometimes stepped in for a moment, just to leave my thermometer in some proper place, and immediately went out again, where I would remain for a quarter of an hour, or ten minutes, and then enter again, and fetch the instrument to ascertain the degree of heat.” 

 There’s more, lots more — Volume I, with this story, has 396 pages, plus a dedication and preface. My next post completes his discussion.

Nikki  

Hockey and the sauna??

Hockey and sauna are not an automatic pairing in my mind — or weren’t until I read a story in the sports section of a recent St. Cloud Times. St. Cloud State University’s team roster now includes four Finnish hockey players: Rasmus Reijola, Kalle Kossila, Niklas Nevalainen and Mika Ivonen. What music to read their names!

The story notes that a sauna was newly constructed for the Finnish players near the team’s shower area. Wow! Was that a deal-breaker — no sauna, no play? Wonder how it compares to saunas they’re familiar with, how often they enjoy a steam ... 
 

A photo on an inside page shows them relaxing in the sauna, in their shorts and jerseys and holding hockey sticks — unusual sauna attire. No wonder they’re grinning!

The other players are beginning to learn about sauna customs — which doesn’t indicate that any have been brave enough to give it a try. According to the story, whose music is played in the locker room is a more important debate.

Inquiring minds need to know, so I checked their game schedule — they’re on ice through mid-April. Maybe I won't get a chance to speak with them.

So I wish them many goals and assists, and even more steams.

Read the entire story in the St. Cloud Times, Oct. 9, 2014: “Four Finns heat up the Huskies roster as opener looms”

Nikki

The dark side of sauna

I love looking at old photos people post on Facebook—they remind me of warm and funny memories from my own experience. A different warm memory occurred in our sauna last week—the electric light burned out. I’ve gotten so used to simply using the on-off switch that I forgot what a ‘no-light’ sauna was like. Fortunately it didn’t happen while we were inside.

The fix was more complicated and took much longer than expected, so for a couple of weeks we took saunas by candlelight (metal flashlights get hot).

It was a reminder of my own ‘olden days.’ The sauna on the beach had no windows, so we’d bring a lantern. Even so, it was very dark inside the sauna chamber. I learned to move slower, let my eyes adjust, steer clear of the stove and climb quickly to the upper bench. The soap or buckets were placed in the same places—easy to find in the inky dark.

In our no-light sauna, sauna preparations took much longer—bucket and dipper here, towels and drinking water there, where we could find them by feel. Remember to open the air vent. How long would our votive candles last? Where should they be placed? When I dropped something, it stayed there until the next day. Even walking to our patio for cool-down was trickier, finding my slip-ons against the dark floor, the door handle not where my hand reached.

After much struggle, Bill, my hero, got the old bulb removed and replaced the socket. Last night—I flipped the switch and voila, there was light! Remembering saunas in the dark was useful, but thank you electricity! 

Nikki