Banal and Nostalgic: Memories of Swedishness in the Christmas Calendar

Abstract

This article explores how Christian heritage is engaged with, strengthened, and contested in and through Swedish newspapers and in the annual Swedish Christmas calendar. Although Sweden is perceived as highly secular and characterized by an increased distance between the former state church and the Swedish population, ideas about Swedish cultural heritage are still tied to notions of a Christian past. Previous research has highlighted Christmas as particularly salient for Swedes’ understanding of their cultural heritage and national identity, which includes perceptions of Christmas as ‘merely’ a tradition. Using theories of nostalgia and banal religion, this article addresses how Swedishness is constructed in the Christmas calendar, as well as through its framing in Swedish newspapers. While the narrative of the Calendar does not normally include overt references to Christian parables, it frequently uses Christian and folkloric symbolism to effect a backdrop of nostalgia. I argue that the Calendar and its framing in newspapers play on conceptions of Swedishness that are inextricably linked to ideas of ‘secularized’ Christianity, and by extension to constructions of what counts as national belonging in contemporary Sweden.