Swedish Celebrities: Carola

Now my Christmas guests have arrived – so I won't be able to update quite as often these next few days – but I hope you bear with me!

For my Christmas version of Swedish celebrities I have selected Carola, because they often show quite an inspiring commercial for her collection of Christmas songs this time of year.

WARNING: I am going to write this without consulting Wikipedia, because it is late, I'm tired and I have a house full of guests. What that means is – you will need to do your own second-rate fact checking (because we all know how reliable Wikipedia is anyway).

Carola is the Swedish Eurovision princess. No one can belt a ballad quite like her. Wherever she goes someone follows her with a giant wind machine that gives her an almost ethereal glow.

From what I have gleaned, Carola sprung to fame as a teenager when she took Eurovision by storm and I think, took home the prize. (Please realize that this was long before the 'Eastern European Eurovision Conspiracy' took over – more on that later). I think Carola even went so far as to win Eurovision maybe twice? Which really makes her quite impressive.

The surprising thing about Carola is that she is a very devout Christian. She is one of the few Swedes that, if ever awarded an award, might accept it with an 'I'd like to thank the lord God for this Best Ballad Belter Award and of course, all my fans,' a sentiment that leaves many a Swede rather stumped.

A few years ago Carola made a grand Eurovision comeback. To fully exploit Eurovision to the extreme, the Swedish competition starts months in advance with 16 different songs competing for the Swedish spot (and no, I haven't decided if I will suffer through them for the sake of this blog). The announcement was made that Carola would compete amongst the 16 top songs. I said to my Swede and any other Swede who would listen 'Why are they doing this stupid sing off? We all know Carola will represent!' They responded 'Oh no, Carola is totally irrelavent these days. No one will vote for her, just wait and see.' And I waited. And Carola showed up, with her giant wind machine. And she won.

And to my surprise she took Sweden a lot further than most other groups in the finals. Because while I understand a little about the Swedish mentality, the European one remains a mystery. So kudos to Carola.