Christmas dinner in Yorkshire

25.12.2025 – This story was first published 23.12.2023 by the polar bears in the Yorkshire Wildlife Park (with a little help from Mervi)

Christmas was approaching with giant steps and our polar bear friends in the Yorkshire Wildlife Park started to make plans for the big holiday.

Luka: We must start our planning now and, of course, the Christmas dinner is our priority number one!

Sisu: I agree but snow is also very important so I’ve contacted my old friend Santa Claus in Finland and asked him to deliver some snow for us. He promised to do his best.

Hamish: I think we’ll have a traditional English dinner with turkey but I also insist we will have haggis, too!

Sisu: In Finland we always have ham, smoked salmon and different kinds of herring. However, we will have it our own way. The funny two legged creatures serve the salmon in thin slices and thats simply ridiculous! We will have salmon au naturelle – it’s kind of polar bear sushi.

Sisu and Hamish

Nobby and Luka: As a dessert we must have Christstollen!

Luka was quite exhausted after making so many plans for Christmas!

Nobby met a nice snowman in his dreams. As we know our Nobby likes travels in the Napland. 🙂

Flocke: I suggest we’ll have a French plum pudding with cod liver oil instead of rhum.

Hamish: What’s so French about  cod liver oil?Flocke: I don’t know but everything French sounds very sophisticated and I’m a sophisticated lady if you didn’t already know that! I also suggest we hide a herring in the pudding instead of a coin.

Tala: Mama and I have been waiting for a Christmas card from my sister Hope and her boys Nanook and Noori.

Flocke and Tala waiting for the mail man.

Of course, they received a beautiful card from the gang in the Peak Wildlife Park.

Flocke: Oh, we received a long letter! Hope and the twins suggest an interesting contribution to our Christmas dinner – Swedish meat balls. I must add them on our menu.

Indiana, Yuma: Do we need some veggies, too? Maybe carots and brussel trouts? But no lettuce! The famous polar bear Knut once said that lettuce is only for sissies and we strongly agree!

Hamish: What shall we drink to make all that food go down? I suggest cod liver oil. Any objections?

Sisu: I think our menu is complete now so we can give it to our keepers. I’m sure they’ll be delighted now that they don’t have to compose the menu themselves!

Everybear: Now we must start rehearsing Christmas songs. Two members of the world famous Yorkshire Cat Choir will help us finding the ‘right key’.

Sisu is all ears ….

Mervi’s note: Sisu, Indie and Yuma were rehearsing loud and clear. I guess they were not singing ‘Silent Night’ ….

What would Christmas be without a nice tree?

The merry quartet Nobby, Sisu, Hamish, Luka

We wish all the readers of this magazine a Merry Christmas! Our special thoughts are with the people and the animals in Ukraine. Once again we hope the war will soon be over. Of course, we wish there would be peace in the whole world!

Smetanka