I have only ever had one white Christmas as an adult, and it was truly magical.

My family and I were living in a small country town in eastern Finland, just 60 kilometres from the Russian border, called Savitaipale. This is where my paternal grandfather’s side of the family is from.

The town is very small. At the best of times it is peaceful and tranquil, but the closer Christmas came, the quieter and calmer it became.

Finns wish each other joulurauhaa, meaning “Christmas peace”, but unless you have experienced a Nordic Christmas, it is hard to explain just how important a part of Christmas that peace really is.

Here in Australia, it feels as though the closer Christmas Day gets, the faster the pace becomes and the more frantic life feels. Then suddenly we are meant to stop, rest, and enjoy the day. In Finland, by contrast, I felt people slowly descended into Christmas peace, beginning already in early December.

It was an iconic Christmas Eve. White landscapes lay shrouded in darkness, lit only by ice lanterns on driveways and candles glowing in windows.

I was determined to give my family a traditional Finnish Christmas. Out of the six of us, I was the only one born in Finland. The rest were born in Australia.

We woke to slow-roasted rice porridge that had cooked overnight in the wood-heated oven. I had bought a special gift for whoever found the almond hidden in the porridge.

As I looked out of the kitchen window, I saw snowflakes fluttering down with such grace and elegance, feathers of white creating a downy nest in every hollow, as if they somehow knew it was a holy day.

According to Finnish tradition, the Christmas tree was freshly cut from the forest and brought inside the night before to thaw. After breakfast, the rest of the family went to decorate the tree while I finished preparing the Christmas meal. The sound of the children’s laughter filled our home.

At midday on Christmas Eve, Finland stops for the Declaration of Christmas Peace. Together, as a family, we watched it on television. The Declaration of Christmas Peace is a tradition that launches the Christmas celebrations and, in a way, marks their official beginning.

Another Finnish tradition is to hang wheat, seeds, and grains on a pole on Christmas Eve, making a Christmas sheaf for the birds.

When I was a child, feeding the birds with my grandma was an important part of my Christmases. It is a tradition with both practical and symbolic origins.

My children followed me obediently outside into the snow as we hung our Christmas sheaf for the birds to enjoy.

Next came the Christmas sauna. It is perhaps one of the oldest Christmas traditions in Finland, and one of the most important preparations for Christmas. It cleanses both body and mind.

The sauna is properly washed, and fresh bench covers, candles, and lanterns are brought in to create the right atmosphere.

My oldest son was twelve years old at the time, and he had the important job of warming up the lakeside sauna. He did it brilliantly. Because a proper wood-heated sauna takes hours to heat, he began early in the morning.

There is something about a country Christmas sauna that still has the power to move me. The silence and quietness of it are soul-stirring.

Imagine a perfect winter wonderland, like a snow globe come to life. A landscape frosted in soft whiteness, a frozen lake, and tree branches so heavy with snow they looked like they were covered with a woolly white doona. The air was crisp, the snow knee-deep, white and glistening like scattered gems. It was magnificent picture-book scenery as far as the eye could see.

The colder the temperature, the more subdued the scent of the air becomes, and yet the smell of burning wood cannot be hidden. The sight of smoke rising from the chimney of the little red wooden sauna is irresistible. The Christmas sauna was calling me, alluring and inviting me into its warmth and peace.

The afternoon was then spent enjoying an unhurried sauna. It is most important not to rush, because Christmas sauna is a time for enjoyment, peace, quiet, and relaxation. Finns like to take things slowly.

I must give my children ten points, because they were willing to give anything a go. This was our Finnish Christmas experience, and we were determined not to stop halfway.

If you think Finns are eccentric because of their sauna culture, you have heard nothing yet. Things were about to get much quirkier still.

It was minus ten degrees. The lake next to the sauna was frozen solid, but we cut a hole in the ice. After sitting in the hot, steamy sauna, my children, all beetroot red, ran out the door one after another. Their feet hit the snow with heightened exhilaration, and without a second thought they plunged into the near-frozen water.

The best way I can describe the feeling is that it feels like being pricked all over by pins and needles. My children got out even quicker than they got in and ran as fast as they could back into the warmth of the sauna.

Everyone who has tried sauna and ice swimming knows that when you step back into the sauna, a strange thing begins to happen. You tingle all over. You feel more alive than you ever have before. The sauna is 80 degrees, yet at first you can barely feel the heat. Slowly, little by little, warmth returns to your body. You feel incredible, fantastic, extraordinarily good, and you want to do it all over again.

There would not be a Finland without sauna. It is in the DNA of the people. Finns love that after-sauna feeling, and the Christmas sauna, or joulusauna, is an ancient tradition that remains as popular as ever in modern-day Finland.

When I was a child, it was customary to go to church on Christmas Day morning, but we learned that many families had begun going in the late afternoon on Christmas Eve instead, so we followed suit.

We piled the family into our blue van and made our way past dozens of ice lanterns to the awe-inspiring stone church of Savitaipale. What surprised us was how full it was. We found seats in the wooden pews in the upper balcony, right next to the pipe organ.

Savitaipale Church is beautiful and impressive, while also very minimalist in its grey tones. Its organ, altar painting, stained glass windows, textiles, chandeliers, and candlesticks all add to its charm, but for me the most touching aspect was the personal family history connected to that church. My grandfather, his father, and his father before him had all attended Christmas church there. The only difference was that instead of arriving by car, they came by sleigh.

When my grandfather was a little boy, their family lived fourteen kilometres from the church. I can only imagine what that early morning sleigh ride to church must have been like for him on Christmas Day, as their horse Maltti pulled them through the snow-covered forest.

My grandfather, then just a little boy, would have sat rugged up in the back with the rest of the family. The journey would have taken an hour to an hour and a half each way. His nose and cheeks must have been bright red by the time Maltti pulled up at the church. But what a magnificent custom it was.

The sustained tones of the pipe organ accompanied the congregational singing beautifully. Toward the end of the service, the congregation rose to their feet. The organist opened the shutters, letting the volume swell powerfully as the last verse of Martin Luther’s Angel from Heaven (Enkeli Taivaan) filled the sanctuary. Sung with gusto, it was deeply moving.

Something about that moment touched me so deeply that tears came of their own accord. It is hard to say exactly what triggered such a powerful emotional response. Perhaps it was the reminder of people, places, and events long gone. Perhaps I was simply overcome by the greatness and beauty of the moment. But I know this much: this lost migrant child had found her roots and felt what it was to belong. The continuum of time seemed to fold in on itself. Each generation touched the next. Time itself seemed to disappear.

As families around us began to leave the church, my family patiently sat there with me, waiting and allowing me to fully feel it all.

The meal that followed was a traditional Finnish Christmas dinner with a variety of fish, baked ham, casseroles, beetroot salads, and freshly baked rye bread. For dessert, the family chose Lappish squeaky baked cheese with cloudberries, glögi, and gingerbread.

Being so used to gift-giving being the highlight of Christmas, it intrigues me that when I look back on our Finnish Christmas now, although I remember the gifts fondly, they were by no means the focal point of the celebration.

Everyone knows, or at least should know, that Santa Claus comes from Finland. In the morning Santa speaks to children through the Santa Claus Hotline, a live stream from his workshop in Rovaniemi, and in the evening he visits children in their homes. There is a knock at the door, and then comes the question: are there any well-behaved children in this house? Traditions vary a little from house to house, but usually the children sing to Santa before receiving their gifts.

Although I am an understanding mother, and although I loved seeing my children enjoy their new toys, there was still one more tradition I insisted on keeping that Christmas Eve night.

One of the Finns’ deepest Christmas Eve rituals is taking a candle to the graves of deceased relatives. Although walking in a graveyard at Christmas might seem strangely odd, the sight of hundreds of candles glowing in the snow in a serene wooded cemetery can be surprisingly uplifting.

Many Finns stroll through graveyards at Christmas even when they have no relatives buried there, simply to take in the tranquil candlelit beauty.

That evening was cold and snow-stormy when, together with my family, I visited my paternal grandfather’s grave and the graves of my ancestors to place a candle there. To me, this was an exceedingly meaningful moment, and the cherry on top of our Nordic Christmas experience.

I live my life in Australia, the country of my present and my future. But as I stood there that Christmas Eve, keeping the old tradition, I felt something deeper than understanding: that Finland is the country of my past, and that my roots run extraordinarily deep in that soil.

Maybe for a child migrant like me, these moments become especially significant, because all my life I have heard questions like: “Where are you from?” “Where is your accent from?” “How do you spell your name?” Then, when a moment like this comes, and I can kneel at my ancestors’ grave with my children by my side, my heart answers with an overwhelming sense of belonging. No one can take my roots and my heritage away from me. They are part of who I am.

Another summer Christmas lies ahead of me. We trade snow for sunshine, rice porridge for Christmas pudding, and mulled wine for a frosty cold beer. Still, Christmas remains my favourite season of all, and I look forward to it each year with childlike anticipation.

To me, Christmas is Christmas no matter the weather, as long as I can share it with my family. But oh, what I would give to experience one more Finnish Christmas one day.