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Spoiler Alert! Sweden has some truly odd Christmas traditions. Turkey, the King’s Speech and mince pies? That’s so boring, so English. Prepare yourselves for inedible fish, demonic Santas and a date with Donald Duck...

1. Stock up on smelly fish

You’ll be serving up Julbord – quite literally "Yule-Table", a Christmas buffet that makes our turkey dinner look positively minimalist. Guests are encouraged to make seven trips to the buffet, taking a plate of different things each time – ranging from smoked salmon and pickled herring, to meatballs, sausages and ham. One food item stands out, though, in its truly unpalatable awfulness – the bad boy of the Christmas buffet, the Justin Bieber of festive food – "Lutfisk".

Lutfisk is dried cod that’s been soaked in water and lye. Now, lye is a chemical that if poured on your hand, would melt it – that’s not really a quality I want in a food ingredient. After soaking, the fish takes on a smelly, gelatinous, tripe-like texture. It is, and I speak from painful experience, truly and utterly disgusting. No Swede I’ve ever met likes it, but they still cook it every year, because… it’s a tradition. Crazy, right? But remember, this is a nation that actually enjoys Eurovision and invented flatpack furniture – masochism is in their DNA.

"Tomten" is Swedish Father Christmas – except he’s not really anything like our one. Whereas Santa is a benign, cuddly man who likes to hang around in grottos and smells vaguely of sherry, Tomten is an altogether more sinister being. He’s about three feet tall, with the appearance of a demonic garden gnome in a pointy red hat, and he expects you to leave a bowl of porridge outside your house for him the night before Christmas. Do that and he may bring you presents, but forget and he will, according to the old folk tales, “harm your farm animals”. Yep, you read that right. You do not want to mess with Tomten. He’s more Freddy Krueger than Santa Claus. That doesn’t stop older, avuncular Swedes from dressing up as him and going round to their neighbours' houses to deliver presents. My kids have never quite recovered from the trauma…

At 3pm on Christmas Eve, the whole of Sweden turns on the TV. Are they tuning in for the Swedish King’s speech? No! Nobody cares about him. They’re watching "Donald Duck". Perhaps the most loved and sacred Swedish Christmas tradition, Donald Duck, or "Kalle Anka" as the Swedes call him, is the name given to a 1950s Disney special, full of clips from old cartoons. Imagine "The Bear Necessities" in Swedish, plus all those bits from Fantasia that are less good than you remembered. It’s dated, a bit dull and pretty much the same every year, but you’re not a true Swede unless you tune in and then observe another sacred tradition – fall asleep in front of it.

Image: Rafael Elias Ayala / Contributor

4. Enjoy some mysterious soft drinks

Ok fact fans, here’s one for you – Sweden is the only country in the world where Coca Cola isn’t the best-selling soft drink at Christmas. Why? The answer is "Julmust" – a fizzy beverage that looks a lot like Coke, but has its own distinct taste, thanks to a secret recipe concocted by the very un-Swedish sounding Robert Roberts and his son Harry back in the town of Örebro in 1910. Swedes just can’t get enough of it, consuming a whopping 45 million litres every December. They also have an Easter version called "Påskmust".

5. Get a goat, and set fire to it

One of the most popular Swedish Christmas decorations is the "Julbock" – a Christmas goat, made of straw, that normally sits under the tree or on a table. It’s a tradition that stems back to Viking times, referencing Thor, the God of Thunder, whose chariot was pulled by two goats – like a rock 'n' roll pagan version of Santa’s reindeers.

The town of Gävle in Northern Sweden takes the Julbock tradition to the max and builds a giant 14 metre tall (that’s nearly 50 feet) straw goat that is displayed in the main square. Just as traditionally, almost every year, it is set on fire.

Now, I have to make this very clear – the Gävle Town Council do not want it set on fire; hell no, they’ve just spent ages building it, and anyway, a flaming 50 foot goat, that sounds really dangerous right? Nope, nobody has official permission to start the blaze, and yet it has been burned down a total of 37 times since 1966. The Council now smother it in a fireproofing serum. I strongly urge you to read the poor goat’s which lists its fate each year. Highlights include "1976 – hit by a car". "1978 – kicked to pieces." "1979 – burnt before it was erected." Only in Sweden could attacking a giant goat become a traditional festive custom.

So, there you have it, that’s the weird and wonderful world of Swedish Christmas. Just remember to leave out that bowl of porridge for Tomten. And stay two metres away from the Lutfisk!