Christmas begins on 12 November on the Baltic Sea – Tallink Silja Line ships get decorated and start offering traditional holiday dishes

Christmas officially begins this year on Tallink Silja Line’s ships on 12 November 2025, when the Christmas buffet selection arrives at the fleet’s most popular restaurant. In response to passenger wishes, the menu will feature 124 classic holiday dishes, including a wide range of MSC-certified, sustainably caught seafood.

"Enjoying festive Christmas dishes in beautiful surroundings with your family, friends, or colleagues creates a wonderful holiday atmosphere. We have kept the Christmas menu in our ships’ restaurants very traditional – as I believe it should be," said Joonas Maunula, Creative Head Chef at Tallink Silja Line. "Our ships offer well-known Christmas dishes that are eagerly awaited by our guests – a variety of fish and meat dishes in the Estonian, Finnish and Swedish styles, as well as Christmas desserts ranging from pinecone cake to yule log. We have added a festive touch to the rich selection of the Green Market vegetarian buffet, and we are particularly proud of our MSC-certified products, i.e. sustainably caught seafood," added Maunula.

New additions to the festive Grande Buffet include orange and honey-glazed pork belly, oven-baked turkey fillet with creamy Calvados sauce and ginger-apple chutney, Christmas pâté with lingonberry jam and marinated red onion, cranberry panna cotta with gingerbread-nut praline, Swedish rice pudding, and chocolate-orange mousse cake.

“The completely vegan Green Market buffet has been redesigned for the Christmas season this year. It’s easy to create a festive salad from it, for example. The selection includes roasted Brussels sprouts, marinated forest mushrooms, potato salad with rosemary mustard, vegan sashimi salad, tofu skagen on dark bread, vegan Brantevik herring, and mushroom pâté. The Christmas buffet features over 120 different items, more than 40 percent of which are vegan,” Maunula adds.

Tallink Silja Line was the first shipping company in the world to receive MSC certification back in 2017. The certification ensures that the fishery meets international standards for responsible fishing. This year’s MSC-certified Christmas buffet items include mustard herring, archipelago herring, sea buckthorn–leek–tarragon herring, shrimp, and skagen flatbread rolls. The MSC label helps passengers verify the sustainability of their choices.

In addition to the regular trips that have been uplifted with Christmas decorations and Christmas menus, three special cruises are also planned for the Christmas holidays. These will depart from Finland and take place between December 23 and 26 between Helsinki and Stockholm, and Turku and Tallinn. The cruise schedule is planned so that passengers can enjoy a peaceful and stress-free Christmas buffet and entertainment on board and spend the whole day in the city upon arrival. Passengers will meet Santa Claus, Harri the seal, and the Moomins on board, and a Christmas-themed entertainment program will keep the mood festive. Cruises departing from Helsinki can also be easily joined from Tallinn by taking a shuttle ship from Tallinn to Helsinki.