Donald Duck and His Friends Wish You a Merry Christmas is a huge holiday tradition in Sweden. Dating back to the 1959, the Disney Christmas Special has been shown at 3pm every year on Christmas Eve. Many other Swedish traditions are organised around the duck, known as Kalle Anka. Innocent arguments such as "in my family we've always opened the gifts before Kalle – but in my family we've always opened them after Kalle" have been behind many a Swedish divorce! The cultural significance of Kalle cannot be understated.
Lena Kättström Höök, curator at the Nordic Museum, Stockholm; “At 3 o’clock in the afternoon you can’t do anything else because Sweden is closed, so even if you don’t want to watch it yourself, you can’t call anyone else or do anything else because no one will do it with you!"