Walking into the quaint Scandia Imports feels like being adopted into a loving, generous Swedish family—and that feeling is doubled during the holidays.
The small store just east of Oregon 217 on Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy is packed to the brim will all things Nordic—shelves with small Christmas dolls, ornaments, the famous Swedish dala horses, Swedish cookbooks, and nostalgia-tinged ingredients from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland that are waiting to become a part of your family's holiday traditions.
The store is celebrating it’s 28th anniversary in 2014 and its owner, Tina Ware, is full of pride over the store's legacy. Originally from Finland, Ware bought the store from another Finn to carry on the tradition by stocking hundreds of products from food to decorations to kitchen supplies, and two items that Tina swears were “the reason I bought this store,” the KarlFazer Milk Chocolate Bar and Skansen Herring.
Here are a few more of Ware's favorite food items to bring home for the holidays:
Anna’s Gingerbread Cookies—a must have Christmas item with a cult following, also known as "Swedish wish cookies"
Lingonberry preserves
Nyponsoppa—rose hip soup, often eaten as a dessert, that contains lots of vitamins C, D and E, calcium, and a load of antioxidants to fortify your winter
Glogg—a spiced Christmas drink (akin to mulled wine) ready to be warmed on the stove to make the whole house smell amazing
Aladdin Chocolates—Swedish chocolates that Ware must have every season. The triple nut chocolate in the box is a Swedish favorite, but has now been discontinued in Sweden, so you can now only find it in Beaverton!
