Episode 128

12 Things You Didn’t Know about Nordic Christmas (Plus, Meet Yulia’s AI Clone)

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Travel to Scandinavia with me for Christmas time

The holiday season is probably my favorite time to be in this region. I grew up in Estonia, a small country just south of Finland that, while not technically part of Scandinavia, has strong cultural ties with the Nordic countries. In my childhood, these Nordic ways to celebrate Christmas were common and today, I'm sharing these traditions with you from a story I did for Fodor's Travel called 12 Strange Things You Didn't Know About Nordic Christmas.

Plus: as a special bonus, my very own AI clone, which I created just for this story, makes an appearance.

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What you’ll learn in this episode:

  • Growing up with Nordic Christmas traditions

  • The pagan roots of Christmas

  • Meet Nordic Christmas characters: Grýla, Bjúgnakrækir, and Joulupukki

  • What Christmas feasts look like across Scandinavia

  • The Finnish tradition of Christmas Sauna

“This small experiment has once again reminded me that no machine can ever take the place of our humanity.”

— Yulia Denisyuk

AI vs Human

Check out the full episode on YouTube →

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