A Christmas Ham is a traditional ingredient in the Finnish and Swedish Christmas celebrations.
Before the arrival of Christianity to Scandinavia, a boar, the wild ancestor of the pig, was sacrificed to the god Freyr at the Yule celebrations and eaten (see Blót). This tradition of butchering a pig at Christmas continued after the Christianization and survives as several dishes (sausages and bread dipped in pork fat) of which the Christmas ham is the most central. Also the Germanic people had a similar celebration as did the ancient Romans, who sacrificed a pig to the Roman god Saturn about the same time Christmas is celebrated nowadays. The ham is considered as important part of the holiday setting as the Christmas tree.