Winter nights, even at Christmas, can be long and, in northern parts, cold. Fortunately, the Scandinavians have a traditional antidote to this frigidity: julebukking. The phrase, pronounced YOO-la-book-er, literally means “Christmas goats,” shorthand for the folk custom of dressing in disguise—traditionally, with a goat-skinned, masked “bukk” in the lead—between Christmas and the New Year, then going door-to-door to surprise friends and neighbors.
The hosts must guess the tricksters’ identities by asking questions, or by physically poking or prodding them to reveal themselves by voice or familiar habit. Once the bukkers are guessed rightly, refreshments—often spiked with warming liquors—come out, as all devolve into merriment. Then, the hosts may scrounge up their own costumes—often dressing in drag—and away the emboldened party will go, off to confound another household.
But why the goat? Folklore suggests the Christmas buck may reference the goats that pulled the sleigh of the Norse god Thor, or perhaps the horned (and horny) incarnation of the devil. Or, it could just be familiarity with goats themselves, as roasted male goat (a buck) is a traditional holiday feast in Scandinavia, writes historian Kathleen Stokker in Keeping Christmas: Yuletide Traditions in Norway and the New Land.
“You have to have the right crew,” says Matthew Myrah, a fourth-generation julebukker in Spring Grove, Minnesota, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “You want to start out with, like, two couples who are up for it but aren’t widely known to be good friends—that way, even when people guess one of you—ok, usually me—they might still struggle to get the others.” Matthew is, by his own admission, central to merry-making in this buttoned-up Midwestern town, as was his mother, Audrejean. A redhead and mischief-maker, she organized the multi-generational holiday outings for decades, increasingly in resistance to digital drains on community life.
“Today, it’s a shocker for people to just get out and visit, face to face,” Matthew concludes. “What if, though, we quit reading ‘eye-burners’ [cell phones] and actually get to know people?” Julebukking, then, in rural Minnesota at least, has come full circle: what was once a prank to play on others may now be the trick to friendly, possibly even furry, self-discovery.
