In 2020, the National Nordic Museum was honored by the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums (MAAM) as a recipient for this year’s Museums Symposium’s Buildy Award

What's Christmas or afternoon coffee without cookies? These Princess Gems first appeared at the Museum's cookbook, Tasty Traditions, courtesy of Marianne Livingstone and Carina Halgren. Today Sharon Lucas and Gail Blaine, co-chair of Goodies2Go, recommend this recipe. The amazing volunteers of Goodies2Go baked this and other Nordic favorites to stock their famous table of treats at Julefest.

This traditional cookie makes a lovely addition to your fika at any time of the year.

Not every neighborhood has a mead hall. But ours does! Skål Beer Hall is a cheerful, modern take on a gathering place for Nordic friends and family in Ballard. As the days gets shorter and Christmas draws closer, the bar is serving up Gløgg based on owner Adam McQueen's family recipe.

If you not close enough to visit Skål , you can still make Gløgg for your guests and any passing tomte.

The question comes up every Julefest: just how many aebleskiver do you make? The answer for 2019 was more than 3,000! As for meatballs, more than 3,400 were served, along with 797 glasses of glogg.

None of this would have been possible without more than 150 volunteers who helped set up, run, and stayed late to clean up after the 42nd Julefest.

Total attendance for the 2019 Julefest was well over 12,000.

In Finland, the afternoon of Christmas eve is reserved for a visit to the special Christmas sauna, joulusauna. So to get ready for Julefest and other holiday celebrations, we’re taking a virtual trip to the oldest working sauna on the West Coast: the Finnish sauna in the Museum’s East Garden.

While the sauna won’t be open for Julefest, you can visit the outside after getting your aebleskiver and coffee in the East Garden. Learn more about how our sauna made it to the National Nordic Museum in this article by Fred Poyner IV.