Trettondedag Jul (Epiphany)

And so 2011 is here! I don't know about you, but the holidays have me exhausted! And just when you thought they were over... here comes one last day in the holiday season. Tomorrow, January 6th, is a bank holiday here in Sweden called Trettondedag Jul ("thirteenth day of Christmas") or Epiphany as it is called in English. Most Swedes don't view this as a religious holiday, more as a day off of work to rest after the holidays and perhaps take down the Christmas decorations.

As a visitor to Stockholm you shouldn't be too bothered by this bank holiday... the vast majority of museums and tours are open for business. Most retail stores are open with shorter hours, though the NK Department Store is closed. Banks and liquor stores (Systembolaget) will be closed and some pharmacies will be closed while others will have shorter opening hours. Some restaurants treat this as a Sunday and will be closed... but the majority are open. For many of the high-end restaurants that were closed for several weeks during the holidays, this weekend either marks when they reopen or the last days before they reopen on Monday.

St Eugenia Catholic Church will be having a mass in English at 6pm and the main Catholic Church, Katolska Domkyrkan, will be having masses in different languages (Swedish, Polish, Spanish, etc;) during the day.