#christmaseve My grandparents were Finnish and our family Christmas was on Christmas Eve. The gag my grandpa pulled when we were little kids was getting us all to hide by a window and wait for Joulupukki to arrive and put things in our stockings, then he would say “oh rats, you were looking out the wrong window! Joulupukki just came and filled all the stockings and you missed him”
And of course we got older and the stocking filling became pretty straight forward, but I’ll always remember that I asked my Grandpa what “Joulupukki” meant and he said it was the Christmas Goat, but it’s actually Santa Claus. However, I was a super imaginative kid who read a lot, so somehow this transformed into an outer space super goat who came to bring us stocking presents on Christmas Eve.
And of course we got older, Grandpa and Grandma died, our little Finnish family in Canada became bigger in some ways, smaller in others, there were a few years it was just my Uncle, my parents, and I just giving each other bottles of booze from Joulupukki.
I’ve kept doing it too, along with adding a “traditional Christmas Eve Rock n Roll tshirt” gift at whatever orphan Christmas party I’m at. Once I even learned how to do an honest to god magician trick where I pulled a 26 out of an empty paper bag. Anyways, Joulupukki, a Finnish outer space goat who eats asteroids and punches satellites hopes you get your bottle and rock n roll tshirt tonight. #merrychristmas