More than 5,000 people started off the holiday season in Scandinavian fashion this weekend at the Nordic Heritage Museum’s Yulefest.

The annual Scandinavian Christmas festival has been an organized event in Ballard for nearly thirty year and included dance and musical performances, hundreds of hand-crafted gifts and traditional Nordic cuisine.

Jolie Bergman started volunteering at Yulefest as a 14-year-old in 1994 and has been involved ever since.

“Yulefest is a great thing to maintain as it opens minds and taste buds to Nordic culture,” Bergman said.

Holiday revelers could indulge in the round Danish pancakes called Aebleskiver in one room, watch Finnish dancing in another, and listen to a Swedish accordion duo while drinking Glogg or Nordic beer in the Bodega.

Bergman said that this Yulefest is the largest festival in the Northwest which highlights all the Nordic countries.

“Music, food and dance are the entry points of an ethnicity,” said Ralph Koschi, a dancer who performed Finnish folk dance at the festival.

“So maintaining a tradition like Yulefest to showcase these dances and cuisine is huge," he said.

Koschi became involved in Scandinavian folk dance ten years ago when he met his Scandinavian wife.

“The patterns and formations are similar to other nationalities but the style of music and footwork make it uniquely Finnish,” Koschi said. “It’s happy, pleasant music.”

Koschi’s heritage is Finnish and he pointed out that the fabric of the vests worn by the dancers carries the pattern specific to the region from which his family originates.
“It’s authentic styling and it makes it personal’” he said.

One of the musical acts was the band, Mäd Fiddlu, which consists of one guitar player and two nyckelharpa musicians. The nyckelharpa is a traditional Swedish folk instrument which looks like a cross between a violin and a key instrument. It has 16 strings and 37 wooden keys arranged to slide under the strings.

“It has all the keys that are on the piano and plays kind of like a fiddle,” said Bart Brashers, a second generation Swede. “They’re still a big tradition in Sweden and mine was built in 2002.”

Brashers, an atmospheric scientist from Ballard, got to playing the nyckelharpa when he was 12 years old. “We had one laying around the house that my dad built in Sweden,” he explained.

Brasher said that the complex instrument is easier to play than a fiddle in the beginning but it gradually becomes harder in the long run.

Greta Buuf, a first generation Dane, oversaw the making of aebleskiver. She has been involved with Yulefest off-and-on for the last ten years and said that it gives her a little taste of home.

“It’s been the same very year and it’s always been popular’” she said. “It’s a good start of the holidays and the money goes to a good cause.”