Jul På Gården: Christmas on the Farm

Jul På Gården (pronounced “Yule Paw Gaw-den”)

Swedish for “Christmas on the Farm.”

A celebration of heritage, handmade beauty, and the art of slowing down.

Jul På Gården: Christmas on the Farm

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Jul På Gården: Christmas on the Farm, the Inspiration

The dining room smells like butter and sugar as our daughter stands at the table beside me, red hair glowing in the candlelight. Mounds of cookie dough are stacked in front of us as we each take turns rolling out the soft dough, and cutting shapes to bake.

The soft hum of Christmas music plays under the flicker of mismatched candles, some brass, some glass, all collected from grandparents and great-grandparents who came before us.

We’re standing in the same room where Matt’s grandfather Francis once hosted Christmas dinner. The built-in hutch behind us that holds family heirlooms was made by his hands with wood from the farm that would become Wildberry. The wood he cut, the fields he tended, the house he built, it all still holds us.

This year’s collection, Jul På Gården, is our love letter to that lineage. To the redheaded farmer who believed in family and hard work. To the woman who filled his table with food and laughter. To the generations who built, baked, and believed.

A Scandinavian Christmas

Francis’s father, Edwin, came from Sweden. He was known for yodeling through the fields, a sound that must have carried across the barns like a song of both longing and joy. A sound I internally wish I was around to hear.

When he moved the family from Michigan to Maryland, he brought with him a way of life grounded in simplicity, celebration, and resilience.

Those roots live on here in the smallest ways: candles instead of chandeliers, handmade instead of store-bought, stories shared over baking, cooking, and preparing to gather together.

Jul På Gården is an invitation to remember that beauty lives in the handmade, the inherited, the imperfect, and that nothing needs to be fancy to be sacred.

In Sweden, there’s a word for this kind of balance: lagom.

Not too much, not too little, just enough.

The Making of the Collection

We photographed the collection in our dining room, the same one Francis and Angelina built large enough to hold a crowd. The same one where our daughter and I now bake cookies in aprons worn by Angelina’s mother, Rose. Every detail carries a story:

• The hutch, built by Francis.

• The aprons, passed down from generation to generation.

• The candles, gathered from our family’s cupboards.

• The tobacco sticks, repurposed from Francis’s fields and turned by Matt into heirloom art.

In Sweden, they call this kind of work slöjd. It's the art of using what you have and making it well.

It’s the belief that creativity and care are worth more than perfection. That handmade things hold a kind of spirit you can’t buy.

Wildberry has always lived that way, rooted in the idea that the most beautiful things often begin with what’s already in your hands.

Our Farmhouse Favorites

The Wise Men

This year, the Three Wise Men join our growing Tobacco Stick Nativity collection.

Carved from the same wood Francis once used to hang and cure tobacco, these figures carry the story of journey, wisdom, and light.

They are intentionally simple, and made to be touched by families and for little hands to play with.

In Swedish design, this kind of art is called brukskonst, or "useful art." Things made to be handled, played with, and loved.

We want children to hold these pieces, to move them around the table and retell the Christmas story with their own hands. They’re built to last, but even more so, they’re built to belong.

The Pendleton Stockings

Our Upcycled Wool Stockings are made from vintage Pendleton skirts and blankets. Each carries its own warmth, its own rhythm of color and texture.

They embody the same slöjd spirit: resourceful, soulful, stitched from what’s on hand and filled with meaning.

Hung by the hearth of a new generation, they whisper stories of the old ones.

The Last of Wildberry 1.0

This collection is bittersweet as it marks the end of an era. This is the final Wildberry 1.0 release.

As we turn the page toward what’s next, I wanted this moment to hold still. To honor where we’ve been and the hands that shaped it all.

Before we step into the new season of Wildberry, we’re lighting one more candle in the house Francis built, a quiet thank you for the legacy that made all of this possible.

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Visit us at the final markets of the season to see Jul På Gården in person.

A Scandinavian Christmas, handmade on the farm.

Thank you to Rebecca McCoy Photography for documenting this collection.