Why do Scandis watch Donald Duck at Christmas?

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except… Mickey Mouse?

Few people around the world know exactly what they will be doing at 3pm on 24 December each year. If you’re from the Nordic, however, the answer will probably be “watching television”. While this might sound a bit uninspired for a holiday activity, you’ll be in good company. In Sweden almost population gathers around the TV at this time to watch Donald Duck’s Christmas - known locally as Kalle Anka’s Jul.

So what’s behind this truly animated tradition? What does Disney have to do with Scandinavian Christmas? And why has Donald Duck in particular become a staple on the smörgåsbord of the Nordic's holiday traditions?

Last December, 4.5 million Swedes tuned in to watch Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul, which translates to Donald Duck and His Friends Wish You a Merry Christmas and is the Swedish name for the 1958 animated Disney television Christmas special, From All of Us to All of You.

More commonly known as Kalle Ankas Jul or simply Kalle Anka, it has been broadcast on public television channels across the Nordic countries every year since 1959, and has become as much a part of Scandi’s yuletide celebrations as meatballs and gravlax. While the programme is shown in dozens of countries around the world and airs on an ad-hoc basis in the US (where the original special was first broadcast), the show has reached non-negotiable status in Scandinavia as part of Christmas programming - both on and off screen.

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Swedish-American Jasmine Borday, 28, grew up in Stockholm with the tradition of watching the show each year, a calendar event that has been met with some quizzical expressions whenever she has told her family in the US about the tradition. “'Donald Duck? Why?!', they ask. And I try to explain that, well, that’s just how it is! It’s a bit like trying to translate certain words that don't exist in other languages, like the Swedish word 'lagom'. It's hard to explain it properly - it’s just something that makes sense in Sweden,” she says.

Having first aired in Sweden in 1959, the programme's humble origins are often credited with its perennial popularity. In 1959, and for the 10 years that followed, there was only one television channel in Sweden. Even up until 1987, there were still only two channels and both were public-service stations. At the time therefore, American cartoons were not exactly common viewing on TV in Sweden - let alone Disney ones. For many years, Christmas Eve was the only time when viewers had the opportunity to watch American toons on their own television sets. Thus the combination of a unique foreign animation with its special Christmas Eve placement and regular time slot each year created a winning formula that made the show a calendar highlight for many Swedes.

The significance of the programme being shown on 24 December is also worth mentioning, particularly to anyone outside of Sweden. While that date may seem like the precursor to the main event of Christmas Day, in Sweden Christmas takes place on 24 December. Though it is still called Julafton (“Christmas Eve”), the 24th, not the 25th, is the day on which Christmas is celebrated in full regalia, with food, presents, song and dance. So 3pm on that day is smack in the middle of Christmas celebrations - a time when tummies are full from the Julbord meal, presents have been either opened or are being stared at impatiently, and the sun has just set - if it even came up at all (hello, Kiruna).

Though not every household watches the show, 3pm on Christmas Eve remains a “do not disturb” moment across the country - an hour when time is suspended and deciding to give someone a call to wish them Happy Holidays is definitely not recommended. Even Sweden’s emergency services have noticed a lull in demand for their work during what they refer to as “the Donald Duck hour”. In 2013, the number of calls in that 60-minute window was 23 per cent lower than during the rest of the day, and calls started picking up again right after 4pm.

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So what are the ingredients in this alluring concoction that has so many people glued to the screen each year? The format of the show is simple enough: a one hour programme that encompasses clips from Disney films, animated shorts and older cartoons interspersed with commentary from a host. The programme includes often shortened or otherwise edited versions of Christmas-specific content from the animation powerhouse, and each year, SVT is also contractually obliged to include preview footage of Disney’s latest releases or upcoming feature films, which usually guarantees a few previously unseen clips or teasers.

It's a quaint tradition, but given the array of entertainment options now available to most families at Christmas, one can’t help but wonder why people keep coming back for more of the same, year after year.

For those who grew up watching Kalle Anka since the 1960s, the sheer nostalgia of returning to something so familiar can be comforting, and it is an accessible tradition that can be passed onto offspring. “I’ve watched Kalle Ankas Jul since 1962, when my family got a TV," says Tommie Bergsten, 71. "Watching Kalle Anka was part of my childhood and it’s been great to be able to share it over the years with my own children. Even if you know what’s going to happen, it’s always just a tiny bit different each year - I especially liked the sloths from Zootopia a few years ago! And it’s nice to have something reliable to turn to each year. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without it.”

But are younger viewers as enraptured with the tradition? “I probably haven’t seen the whole programme in one go that many times, but I absolutely remember seeing snippets of it when the TV was on in the background, ever since I was very young," says 13 year old Alice Olheden. "It has never been a huge thing in my family, but it has still been such a nice feeling to be able to watch - or even just listen to - something that is a real tradition, just as my parents did when they were younger. I have always thought of Kalle Anka as an amusing and cosy part of Christmas, even now when there is so much else to watch or do. It feels like people might think that we younger generations don’t appreciate it, that we think it’s old fashioned or boring and that we have better things to do, but most of us appreciate it as much as my parents did when they were little, just in a different way.”

It may all sound very sweet and innocent, but Kalle Anka has not been immune to controversy over the years.

In the 1970s, the head of children’s programming at SVT suggested that it might be good for the programme to skip a year, as the show could seem flippant and commercial in what was a considerably more serious political atmosphere of the time. The subsequent backlash was a stark reminder that the Swedish public would not be denied their Kalle Anka - regardless of the political climate.

Then, in 1982, the standalone 1938 short film Ferdinand The Bull was removed from the package of clips shown, under the presumption that younger audiences would find it too slow-moving to keep their attention. The move backfired massively, however, as angry demands to reinstate the tale came flooding in during the show itself. To pacify viewers, SVT tagged the short film onto the end of the programme right after it aired. The following year, Ferdinand was reinstated in the programming, and since then, the flower-smelling taurus has kept his rightful place in the show. While these changes might stir reactions in viewers, it is Disney who is behind such editorial amendments - though SVT is almost always the recipient of the complaints that they cause.

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Similarly, in 1998, when a Robin Hood segment was omitted due to SVT’s rights having run out, the resulting public outrage forced the broadcaster to quickly make a deal with Disney, ensuring the outlaw fox was back where he belonged the following year.

And it's not just the cartoons that have attracted controversy. Swedish household name Arne Weise hosted the show from 1972 through to 2002, but when, in 1992, he enquired about the possibility of pre-recording his segments so that he could, for once, spend Christmas with his family instead of being preoccupied about the transmission, he was met with a wave of criticism from the public over the potential break with tradition. He subsequently backed down and presented live.

The Swedish public has not been completely averse to changes to the show however. In 2012, Disney made the long called-for decision to edit the Santa's Workshop segment, a clip which was made in 1932 and that included an offensive caricature of a "golliwog"-like black doll. A number other edits have been made in recent years to ensure such a widely-viewed programme does not include content that can be categorised as prejudiced or offensive.

This delicate balance of tradition with needed progressive change, has helped the show maintain its appeal, even as competition for the Swedish public's attention proliferates. Last year’s viewership numbers were the highest on record since 1997. To the cynic, these statistics may simply represent the fact that the pandemic caused more people to spend time in their own homes last year, but others might see it as an increase in people turning to the familiar.

Though not quite the roaring fire depicted in yuletide tales, the fact that Swedes choose to gather around the ambient glow of the television year after year is an example of cultural significance at its most inexplicable and unique. And perhaps now, at a time when the world may seem to be changing beyond our control, it is a particularly welcome reminder of the comforting power of familiarity and of the simple joys that traditions can bring.