Monday, December 14, 2015

An inspiration for Charlestown’s annual New Year’s Eve bonfire

The Gävle Goat is Back!

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Hi friends! Soon I´m back on my feet, and we shall see each other again! #sharegavle#gavlegoat
— Gävlebocken (@Gavlebocken) November 26, 2015
Sweden is celebrating the beginning of the Christmas season in the traditional way -with the Gävle Goat! Every year since 1966 the people of Gävle, Sweden, erect a huge straw goat for Christmas. 

We’ve covered the ups and downs of the goat over the years, when it sometimes comes to a bad end [when some prankster succeeds at burning it down – something that happens around 50% of the time].

The goat for 2015 is up, and the goat’s Twitter account (in both Swedish and English) has been activated. How long will it last? You can keep tabs on the goat with a live camera feed. –via Metafilter

From Gavle, Sweden’s tourism website:


Worth knowing about the Gavle Goat
This is how the Gavle Goat often meets its end
  • The Gävle Goat is 13 metres (42.6 feet) high, seven metres long and weighs 3.6 tonnes.
  • It takes a whole truck full of straw from the local village of  Mackmyra to create the goat.
  • 1 600 meters of rope is used.
  • 12 000 knots are tied.
  • 56 five metre straw mats form the straw coat.
  • 1200 metres of Swedish pine create the wooden skeleton.
  • 1000 man-hours of work are needed to build the Gävle Goat.
  • The Gävle Goat is inaugurated on the first Sunday of Advent every year, in conjunction with the “skyltsöndagen”.
  • The Gävle Goat has friends in more than 120 countries around the world that follow it in social media.
  • In 2015, 420 000 people visited the Gävle Goat, dressed in a flower coat, when it was on tour in the Chinese twin town of Zhuhai.
  • The Gavle Goat has been hit by a cruising car and been subjected to fire and sabotage over the years.
  • Staged hacker attacks and kidnappings have also been planned. 

You can follow the Gävle Goat from the first Sunday of Advent until after New Year or until the sad day that it meets its notorious fate.

There is a webcam placed at the Castle Square: www.visitgavle.se/gavlebocken

The Gavle Goat likes to communicate and he is a big fan of social media. During his stay in Gävle each year, he writes in hisblog and tweets, you can also follow him on instagram.

Send him a mail at: gavlegoat@merjuligavle.se.

Watch the films - follow the building of The Gävle Goat
Del 1/3 Straw mats  
Del 2/3 The wooden skeleton dressed  (published 23/11)
Del 3/3 The Gavle goat put together (published 28/11)

The committee 
The Gavle Goat is built and protected by a special committee. If you have questions concerning the Gavle Goat you can contact its´ spokesperson Johan Adolfsson, johan.adolfsson@gavle.se
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