Can Anyone Help with Two Finnish Sayings?

Paul Gogojuice asked the following question on the Mama Lisa's World Facebook Group: Hi all. My grandmother is full Finnish and as a child she always had 2 different sayings that she'd say to us. I don't know how to spell them or anything, but I'm going to do my best to explain them. The first one [...]

Mama Lisa Now Has a Facebook Group

We'd love it if you'd join the Mama Lisa Facebook Group. You can post anything you'd like about your culture. You can post your own musical recordings or YouTube videos… Links to culture and musical sites… Photos of your country… Questions about songs or cultural issues… Anything related to World Culture and [...]

Can Anyone Help with a Finnish Kids Song?

Jessica wrote to me looking for help with a kids song from Finland… hello, i am looking for a Finnish children's song called TUKU TUKU ULLIGA FOREN, KILI KILI VITA LAMMEN……. the rest i don't know. sorry, i know the spelling is all wrong, but if u can make it out and send me the [...]

Valentine's Day Around the World

GUEST BLOGGER Lisa Smith of Regionz Kidz has graciously shared this interesting post about international Valentine's Day traditions. February 14th has come to mean red and pink hearts, flowers, chocolates and Hallmark cards here in the US. But, how did Valentine's Day become a day that we celebrate with our loved ones? Valentine's Day began [...]

A Santa Lucia Day Song and Saying, plus why it's a Festival of Light

Several days ago I wrote a post about the Santa Lucia holiday in Sweden and Scandinavia. A popular saying associated with this holiday is: Lucy Light, The Shortest day & The Longest Night. This saying celebrates the association of St Lucia's Day, December 13, with the Winter Solstice which, under the old Julian calendar, used to fall [...]

St. Lucia's Day in Sweden and Scandinavia

Santa Lucia's Day is celebrated on December 13th in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. It commemorates the life of Santa Lucia, who is also known as Saint Lucy. St. Lucy was born in Syracuse, Sicily around 283 and died in 303 AD. The myth is that her parents wanted her to marry a man [...]

St. Knut's Day – Looting the Christmas Tree

Last year I wrote about St. Knut's Day, a holiday celebrated on January 13th, in Sweden, Finland and Norway. St. Knut's Day is all about getting rid of all the Christmas decorations and throwing out the tree, thus ending the Christmas season. When I wrote about it last year, I asked if anyone knew of [...]

How to Find Sheet Music, Tunes and MP3's on Mama Lisa's World

In addition to this blog, I also host Mama Lisa's World. Mama Lisa's World is a large collection of children's songs and rhymes from countries all around the globe. Matt, a music teacher from Rhode Island, wrote a question to me, the other day, about Mama Lisa's World: Hey Mama, I love the concept of your site. [...]

Free Online Language Dictionaries

While I have this link at hand, I'd like to recommend www.freedict.com. It's a site devoted to free online language dictionaries. You can translate between English and the following languages: Afrikaans Danish Dutch Finnish French Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Latin Norwegian Portuguese Russian Spanish Swahili Swedish I find that it can usually succeed at translating the words I need. Feel free to recommend other language dictionaries that you like in the [...]

The Origins of Some Scandinavian Toe Naming Rhymes

Julie and Beth wrote looking for the origins of two Scandinavian rhymes that are played with little kids while touching their toes. We're wondering if anyone's ever heard of these rhymes and perhaps knows what country they're from and/or anything else about their origins. Here's what Julie wrote: I have been searching for the [...]