Happy to report that “a new threat has emerged”. The latest development in the goat saga is that the goat is being eaten alive by birds. This has, according to experts on the news, never happened before.
If anyone is more interested in the work behind the Gävle goat there is apparently a documentary here, mostly in swedish, but what I found most charming is that you can climb into the goat through a door in it's behind.
And if you ever wondered: yes, according to rumors a couple have fucked in the Gävle goat. In 1966 in fact, the first year it was up and before any kind of arson. I don't know why they threw that into the documentary but this goat has layers is all I'm saying.
The Gävle goat is getting a lot of attention around here, but I would like to make a case for a couple of other Swedish Christmas goats: The Kävlinge "Horny Goats".
It has been a Christmas tradition in the town of Kävlinge since 2015 to put up a pair of goats in a traffic circle. And for just as long, there has been a somewhat more inofficial tradition that someone will move those two goats into a mating position, giving them the nickname "kåtbockarna" (literally "the horny goats", a Swedish term similar to the English "horndog").
One year an unknown person even put up three smaller goats around the two large ones, to indicate that they've had children.
This year, however, the goats have been positioned in a somewhat less intimate position, simply kissing eachother:
Swedish television news did a short feature where they interviewed citizens of Kävlinge about this latest change, and most of them expressed disappointment, apparently preferring the "horny" version.
Considering that "bock" usually refers to males of the species, this means that Kävlinge has had a public display of gay sex each Christmas for several years, enthusiastically supported by its citizens. I think that's a Christmas tradition well worth celebrating.