Tag Archives: Christmas
My Christmas 2012

I celebrated Christmas at my parents house with my siblings, my sisters boyfriends and my nephew.

I began the day with Christmas breakfast at home.
christmas breakfast

I arrived at my parents house in time for the traditional TV-program “From all of us to all of you”. This has aired on Christmas eve in Sweden since 1960 and is watched by about half of the Swedish population every year.
from all of us to all of you

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My Christmas tree, decorations and more

This past week I’ve been busy with all kinds of Christmas preparations but I haven’t posted a single photo of anything I’ve been doing so here’s a bunch of pictures, mostly of this years decorations.

Here’s the 2012 Christmas tree. Same as last year + three new sets of ornaments. I call it my Winter Wonderland Christmas tree because I think it looks like something straight out of a Christmas fairytale.

white christmas tree with pink, black and silver ornaments

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Of sad movies and Christmas preparations

I shouldn’t watch sad movies, I’m too sensitive, they bring me down too much. I shouldn’t watch movies like Now Is Good, based on one of my favourite books Before I Die, by Jenny Downham. I really shouldn’t watch movies like that, or read books like that. I should also stop reading blogs written by people dying in cancer. I’m too scared of death and is brought to tears way too easily. Stories about dying people first makes me cry and then makes me worry I might be suffering from some horrible deadly illness too, without knowing. It’s really not good for me. I should only watch happy movies and only read happy books. That would be better for me.

Besides being a bit misty eyed from watching a really sad movie I’m fine. I’m busy preparing for Christmas and really shouldn’t be up this late. Tomorrow I need to go downtown to run some errands, then I need to clean the flat, put together a gingerbread house, pay the bills, post Christmas cards, wrap the last gifts and dye my hair and eyebrows. I’m not quite sure how I’ll manage doing all that but I’ll at least try getting up early. I’m really good at that. Not. I suck at getting up early, real bad.

By the way, you should all read Before I Die and then watch Now Is Good.

Christmas preparations

Yesterday I began the Christmas gift wrapping. As I do every year I loaded up with winernougat, gingerbreads, glögg (spiced mulled wine), julmust (traditional Swedish Christmas pop), lit candles and put on a Christmas movie, this night the 90s remake of Miracle on 34th Street.

christmas coziness

Today was Lucia, a Swedish Christian tradition which as most other big Christian traditions in Sweden has very little to do with religion nowadays. We’re a very unreligious people, us Swedes. Anyway, we didn’t really celebrate Lucia but dad came over with lussebullar (saffron buns) and gingerbreads. We had those with glögg and julmust as I wrapped some more gifts. I love my parents untraditional gingerbreads. Cats, llamas and angels!

cat and llama gingerbreads

angel gingerbreads

X-mas card exchange, sticky keys and marble mishaps

Any more people up for a Christmas card exchange? Comment and I’ll send you an e-mail.

Ahh god damn, typing at my laptop is annoying right now. You see earlier today the marble window board crashed into the floor and I was so startled by the sudden sound that I spilled glögg (spice mulled wine, non-alcoholic for me) all over the keyboard. It still works but the space bar is is sticky and hard to press down. I don’t know how to remove it to clean it so I’ll wait for Andreas to come home tomorrow and then he can hopefully help me out.

This whole window board thing was a messy deal. One of the two flower pots standing on the board now has a crack and a piece missing and the wooden living room floor was damaged as well. The heavy marble board crashed into the floor and broke into four pieces. Four heavy pieces making ugly marks at my floor. This probably wouldn’t have happened had the marble board not been cracked. It was that way when I moved into this apartment, glued together, and I never complained about it because I could still use it. After the accident I noticed the crack wasn’t the only problem but that it also wasn’t screwed to the support thingies, whatever you call them, the things it was resting on. I’m calling the landlord tomorrow. Maybe I can get some kind of compensation for the damaged floor, which I paid for and put in myself when I moved in here. The material damage annoying as it is still isn’t the worst thing. Sarah likes to hide beneath the armchair in front of that window. If she had been laying there when the board crashed down she would have died. Thank god she was somewhere else at the time. I would have fucking sued the landlord had she been hurt.

mess

Oh yeah, I made a Christmas (more like winter in general really) theme for Whirlwind. I like the colours but I’m not sure about the header. I don’t think it “pops” as much as the header with the raven did. I realize the two headers are pretty much identical except for the colours and replacement of the raven with a snowflake. Still, the raven made it pop, a snowflake is just… meh…

God damn typing when you have to press down the space bar super hard for anything to happen is really annoying! I’ve tried cleaning underneath it with a wet dish rug but it didn’t do any difference. I’m ending this post now before my thumb get a cramp because of that sticky bar.

The taste of Christmas

One of the best things with Christmas is that you can buy glögg (spiced mulled wine) everywhere! We bought three non-alcoholic kinds last week. The one in the back is the standard flavour of glögg in Sweden, the ones in the front are cloudberry flavoured and blueberry & lingonberry flavoured. The cloudberry kind is absolutely delicioius. The best glögg I’ve ever tasted!

spiced mulled wine

City Christmas decorations

In Sweden the last Sunday in November is called “skyltsöndag”. The word “skyltsöndag” comes from the word “skyltfönster” which means “display window” and “söndag” which means “Sunday”. Skyltsöndag is the day when stores traditionally put up Christmas decorations in their display windows. Usually the cities outdoor Christmas decorations are also put up this weekend.

Me, Andreas and part of my family went downtown to look at the decorations and visit the Christmas market. I took some quick snapshots which turned out kinda shitty.

västerås

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