Private weddings

Hey! My name is Emmelie Hedberg and I'm goning tell you about "Private weddings".
When people dont't want to get married in the church, they can be married on a nice meadow or in their own garden if they want to.
My aunt and her fiancé had their wedding in the garden, all the relatives where there, and they had a priest. The weddings were very beautiful, with a big cake and a lot of flowers.
The bride is wearing an optional dress and it doesn't have to bee white. And the bridegroom can also have an optional clothing.
This kind of weddings is exactly like the weddings in church with the ring and all that.

You can also have a civil wedding.
Then the bridal couple don't have a priest who is marrying them, it is the mayor instead.
My mother and father had a civil wedding, they were married in the Town Hall in Stockholm.

Emmelie                                        (back to top)

Confirmation

When I was 14 year-old I went to a confirmation camp. The camp was four weeks and I saw my family just ones during that time.
We were 30 teenagers, 5 confirmation leaders and 2 priests and we all were from different places in Sweden. I didn't know any one when I first came there but after some days I knew almost everybody.
It was like school, we went up at seven a clock. Our lesson started at eight. At the lesson we learned about God. That was not the only thing, we also had lecturers who talked about racism and mobbing. We never had homework, which was a relief to us. The lessons were divided in three parts. The first lesson was eight to eleven, the second one to three and the last one was four to six. In the middle of the days we went to the beach and played and spend time together. At ten a clock we had to be in our beds.
After the four weeks I knew the others "candidates for confirmation" better then the teenagers in my school.
The last weekend we attended the confirmation ceremony. At Saturday we showed our relatives and friend a theater, in the church, about thelife of Jesus . The last day, Sunday, we took the sacrament in front of lot of people and where we finally confimed that we had accepted our baptism and religion and the confirmation camp was over.
We take the sacrament to remind ourselves about the last dinner Jesus had before he was crucified. It's a piece of bread, which you dip in wine before you eat it.

Rut                                             (back to top)

Christmas

We celebrate Christmas the 24 of December to honor the birth of Jesus Christ.
Christmas Eve is a day when all families get together. We spend time together and eat Christmas food. At three o clock everybody watch a cartoon on TV, "Donald Duck and Christmas " and eat candy. After that everybody gather around the table and eat typical Swedish Christmas food: Christmas ham, salted herring, meatballs, sausages, spareribs. In the evening Santa Claus comes and deliver the Christmas presents. It often is the father in the family who has dressed up as Father Christmas (Santa Claus). The small children often think it is very exiting to wait for Father Christmas.

Early in the morgning on Christmas day people go to church, celebrating the birth of Jesus and listening to many beatiful Christmas songs.

Sofie and Ajla                                  (back to top)

Baptism

Most children are baptised when they are about six months old. You wear a white dress, both boys and girls. The boys have a blue ribbon and girls a pink one. The dress is much longer than the children are.

The parents can decide if they want their child to have godparents. They carry the child down the aisle. The godparents will take care of the children if the real parents die and they are often close relatives to the child, like an uncle and an aunt.

In the church there is a divine service first and then the baptism takes place. The priest puts some water on the child's head and he blesses it. During that service the child gets its Christian name and one to three middle names. If the parents aren't married the child usually gets the mother's surname. Some 50 years ago it was most common to give the child it's fathers surname but now it is more and more common that the child gets both parents surnames.

After the baptism you get a big candle and a certificate from the church. The child's parents have a little ceremony at home and many relatives come and give the child presents, like jewellery, picture frames, clothes and saving-boxes. The parents take photos of the child in the white dress with ribbons. They send the photos to the relatives and thank them for the congratulations.

Kristin, Emilie                                  (back to top)

Weddings

I'm baptized in a Christian church but I am not confirmed. I never go to church. I have been to two weddings. The last one was in Korea, I attended my uncles wedding in two ways. The usual European way and a traditional Korean wedding. There were a lot of people and we ate traditional Korean food. We were in a big building. You can look at my pictures from the two ceremonies.
I'm not a believer of any kind.

The Korean Wedding.
My mother is from South Korea/ Seoul so almost all of my relatives on my mom's side live's in Korea. My uncle was getting married so me, mom and my younger sister went to Korea.
My uncle got married in the town hall. It was magnificently beautiful. It was big and colourful. My uncle had a black suit and the bride had a beautiful white wedding dress. My uncle and his bride had a Korean folk dress "Hambock". It's a very thin and light material.

LisaLee                                       (back to top)

To be a Cristian

I'm a Christian. It's my decision to be a Christian even though my parents are Christians. I go to church at least one time every week. I was baptised when I was ten. In our church we don't have christening with small children as in the "Swedish church". A small child has not choosed to be a Christian and we think that it every mans decision to follow Jesus. So we practice batism when we know that we want to follow Jesus as "grown-ups". I read the Bible at least once a day and I also use to pray. I don't count the times because that's not so important how many times you pray as it is in Islam. The most important is that you have the fellowship with God as you have in praying and worshipping. Worshipping is something very important to me. I almost sing to the Lord always. It's just coming from inside me so I use to sing and play some worship song. It's not some mysteries it's just that I love Jesus and I sing to him. If you are in love you just love to talk to that person and perhaps you also use to sing for him and that's what I do to my Jesus.

The most weddings in the church in Sweden, it's an old tradition. I think that weddings are a union between mankind and God. The Bible says that God created man and woman and " therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." We use to have a ceremony when a "vigsel förättare" prays with the couple and blesses them. And then we use to sing some love songs. The bride uses to be dressed in with ( a symbol for purity). And after the ceremony we have a sort of party where we celebrate the union of these to.

We believe there are a life after death. We use to be in a church but we don't have a very big religious ceremony at the funerals. We say a last goodbye and we pray together. Some one speaks and we remember the one that has past away.

Maria                                           (back to top)

Funural

The experience that I have from funurals is that it is very sadly, but that is also the mening of it I think.
There are several funural companies that you can choose from, and they have different ways to perform the funural, they are also the ones to help making and planing the funural.

The most regular funurals take place in a church with a preast who reads from the bibel,pray and honour the person that is dead. When the funural starts the clock rings from the church tower and then family and freinds put down flowers and memories from the person on the chest.
After the funural there is often a time were everybody come together to talk and mourn.. But as I said before there can vary from family to family and you can do the funural very personal and special.

Erik                                             (back to top)