Sunset all day long

Only one week to go before Christmas, and you can tell that when shopping, all shops are filled with shoppers and there are long queues at the check outs.

At least the pre-holliday panick has not yet stricken, that is normally not detectible until next week, the day before Christmas Eve itself, and on Christmas Eve morning, the last desperate rush before the shops close for the hollidays. Spouses who have forgotten to get the other half anything, or just late shopping as in not enough time.

I have luckily been able to get most of my shopping done already, just had an item to get for Saturday's birthdays party. Sad to be born so close to Xmas especially when a child but we all have to be born sometime.

Until recently the skies here in southern Finland were overcast for weeks, it was wet and murky which made me sad and depressed. Now with the weather colder, actually colder than normal for this time of the year in the whole country, when one gets to see the sun and sky makes one, at least me, much happier and more content with life. It is nice to know that on Monday the light changes and we will be having more daylight time every and each day, as now it looks more like it is sunset all day long.

Surreal awakening

I woke up this morning dreaming of an acquaintance of mine that had been murdered and was being sawed and severed into bits and pieces for better disposal of the carcass. No hold on; do not analyze this dream as yet as there is a perfectly sane explanation to it I’m just about getting to it.

The thing is that I really woke up to the sounds of sawing, serious sawing went on in some neighbour’s apartment early in the morning and now thinking about it, it must’ve been someone getting rid of their Xmas tree, sawing it to bits in order to get it out in more reasonably easy. As for the part about my murdered acquaintance, it is also simple, as such one exists, a woman I knew years ago, though not very closely, was actually murdered and dismembered. The case in question was quite sensational and made the papers, at least in northern Europe. The offspring knew her better as she used to occasionally babysit, though probably they have no what so ever recollection of it today.

Anyway, having had this dream with real sawing sound effects looking out the window really got me hair standing. Since we moved here the view out of the bedroom window has always looked the same but today I wondered what UFO, or in the next moment of drunken sleepiness what a car had its’ headlights straight on the huge old fir trees outside. Only realize that this was the first time in over a month with an overcast sky I have seen the blue sky and the sun is shining.

Xmas always brings back memories of our childhood in a nice, comforting way as well as in a not so nice way, as in bad memories. For me Xmas always has been a lot about food, and having periodically had tendencies for compulsory overeating, not as in bulimia and throwing it up, but eating more than enough and getting over stuffed, I have after years of work got my eating in order. I eat when I’m hungry, and don’t over do it anymore, only Xmas seems to bring me back a compulsory urge to over eat. But as the delicacies I prepare for the season only gets served in this household once a year, I guess you have to make best use of them, and this morning’s surreal moment when waking up seems to be an effect of eating more than supposed to in addition to the offspring keeping me awake until the early hours of morning, resulting in way too few hours of sleep. And according to the Norse tradition, you were supposed to stuff yourself at midwinter time in order to preserve the good fortune for the year to follow suite.

Still the fir trees are a funny shade I am not used to, as in their normal colour, but I guess I can live with a little sunshine for a change. And yes, this Christmas was a white Christmas!

Marrying for money

The weather forecast now promises subzero temperatures for Xmas, but whether there will be snow here in the south, that still remains a puzzle.

This year the first snow arrived later than the two previous years. This year there was no snow until end of November, whereas the previous years we had a snow blizzard that hit the country hard in change of October and November, still we had two black Xmas’.

So in the meantime, enjoy the picture of last Xmas’s snow!

Anyway, seeing a Finnish woman walking in the street with an outlandish looking man always makes people talk.

Comments such as: “what a shame she did not go for a decent Finnish man instead” or “she’s so ugly she had to buy her a man” are spoken out loudly in the street.
And this is in no way my own opinion; this is only what I have heard people say in the street.

Still, the general opinion about these mixed marriages seems to be, that they come here and live on Finnish welfare after their divorce. This may be true or may not, they might be as hard working as any Finn, or even more, but fact is, that these marriages have become a most lucrative business as you might obtain a permanent permit of residency here in Finland.

This gives an entirely new dimension to the expression: “marrying for money”.

The media say that these marriages of convenience are arranged for between thousands of Euros up to tens of thousands of Euros, and most frequently the other part comes from across the eastern border or from Africa or Thailand.

Missing addresses

Today is the last day to send off the Xmas cards with the postage of 60 cents per card, if you want to have them delivered in time before the holidays.

The cards will still be delivered in time before Xmas if you send them later, but then you have to spend 90 cents on each card instead.

As many people want to send their Xmas cards off today, it has been the busiest day of the year of the phone companies with numerous phonecalls about missing addresses as stating the wrong address on the card will definitively delay it, if not even make it go entirely missing.

And Finns do move houses quite a lot according to recently published statistics, Finns move 13 times in their life time.

Having just recently moved house myself it got me thinking as I have been through my fair share of moving houses. 18 times already to this day, most of them when still in school and living at home, and only 8 of them after having left the nest.

Anyway, the most tiresome thing about moving, and now especially just before the holliday season, is the seemingly never ending cleaning and washing that all gathers up and has to be done, getting things in order for Xmas to take them down in just a few weeks.

Still, there is no Xmas without all the decorations and trinkets, so I have worked hard to get things ready for all the decorations to go up and better get in gear for some serious cooking that needs to be done.

One thing is still not yet to be determined, whether this will be the third black Xmas in a row or not. But that you never know until Xmas itself.

End of festivities

Finally the hollidays come to an end, even though Christmas really still keep on going on until Epiphany, the thirteenth day of Xmas when it really ends.

Not having posted anything for almost a week does not necessarily mean that I have not had anything to write about, I have just neither had the opportunity nor the time to post, all the Xmas preparations and activities to cope with, you know, and so many people hanging around doing nothing, just surfing the Net in order to avoid death of total boredom totally ignorant of my great displeasure about my disrupted morning routines, not being able to blog.

A great many ideas passed through my mind and many of them were even written down on paper at the time, some even got as far as getting typed into the PC but none got posted in the hurry.

Just the other day I was thinking about what Xmas really is, what does Xmas consist of?

And I guess there is no right answer there, just as many answers as there are people. At least for me much of the joy comes from the preparation of the festivities, the cooking and planning ahead of time on order to get the show on the road when it is time. A lot of my Xmas consists of food, not always the eating but the cooking of it, the smells of the cooking, and the scent of hyacinths, gingerbread and mulled wine and the Xmas music.

Xmas can actually be faked like we had to some years ago out of practical reasons. We had to postpone our Xmas until December 28^th and it all went well, even the offspring did not notice we swapped dates and we were even successfully able to conveniently swap daddies as Santa’s with our neighbours without disturbing either families Xmas activities as it normally would have done.

By the way, I am very pleased with our family doctor, the care and treatment he is providing- the very first in Finland to really have been bothered to care even in his spare time, interested enough to occasionally drop in to read my Blog. During my visits at his surgery it has become apparent for me that we do share many ideas as well as have differing opinions on many issues so I would be thrilled having a discussion with him in private, and as he lives nearby, just down the road (of course I have googled him!) it is not such an impossible thought that we might bump into each other, in private so to speak. But I guess it would not be really ethical; being a social acquaintance of your family doctors’ would it?

Okay, I better get going to the supermarket in order to get something else but Xmas food for dinner tonight.

Late nights and early mornings

I always have hated having to get to the airport early in the morning, which in this case more might like in the middle of the night to drive someone to the airport in order to catch an early morning flight.

I can never sleep in the night before worrying whether I’ll wake up by the alarm or not and there is no difference in me just dropping someone off at the airport or me boarding a flight. Add to this the fact that yesterday night was spent at a Christmas party you could not say no to out of obvious reasons having to stay until 1 AM in order to get up at 4 AM to get at the airport at 5.30 AM at latest in order to not miss the flight. Coming back home there was this beautiful almost full moon shining, hanging as low as almost dropping from the sky onto the treetops and then there was no sleep. It took me two days until I could sleep, I did try to catch a nap when sleepy and hardly no longer could stay awake, but by the time I got to my bed to catch a nap I was not tired and could not sleep anymore.

Anyway, the TV show Good morning Finland, which I usually refer to as morning TV, was formerly broadcasted live from the so called glass palace in central Helsinki and it was nice watching passers by making their way to their jobs in the morning, having a glimpse of the weather out the window behind the narrators and seeing the traffic passing by during the morning rush hours on one of the busiest streets in Helsinki city. I actually have no idea how long the show was broadcasted from the glass palace maybe longer than I have lived in Finland, but I do miss it, now the show seems so small, like cramped into a too small box, or room like in this case. No air to breathe.

Some things you just get accustomed to, like your morning cup of tea, or coffee for that matter if you are a coffee person, which I am not at least early in the mornings not even after a big sturdy breakfast.

In a hurry

Visitors often are surprised by seeing the Finnish pedestrians docilely standing waiting for the red light to switch to green and go mode, even with no cars driving past the Finns still patiently wait.

I am not sure whether the Finns are just that law obedient, or if they just fall asleep when waiting. In many other countries, including the neighbouring ones, but especially further southwards in the Europe there is a tendency to just cross the street when no cars are coming when ever possible. But now it seems to be the season for jaywalking in Finland, these few days just before Xmas and no matter what city you are in the same go everywhere it seems.

Pedestrians crossing the busiest, most trafficked street in town on red, inpatient to wait for it to switch into green and the busiest and most stressed ones are the most dangerous and daring ones. They just cross the street anywhere not even bothering about the zebra crossings and right when they are in the middle of the street there comes either a car in high speed or a bus that has to avoid running over the daring pedestrians. Sometimes it looks like pigeons running over the street. These people putting their limb and health in danger are both men and women, and no difference in sexes here apparently. They are not the young ones as one would normally assume neither are they the teenagers, instead they are the normal, average middle aged citizens.

Women in their forties with their fur coats, hands full of shopping bags scurrying across the street. Men rushing in suits on their lunch breaks to get something done before time runs out, even older grandmothers slowly walking in the middle of the street waiving their walking sticks. Then there of course always is the odd “normal ones” trying to make a short cup to the liquor shop, if you get my drift.

This strange and rarely occurring phenomenon of Finns jaywalking is best observed when on foot, and not from a car passing by. The Finns somehow seem to be in heat now before Xmas, they do not have their normal patience with waiting and queuing, shifting foot, sighing and restlessness even at the cash automate waiting for your turn to withdraw some money to buy presents with.

People are so very much more inpatient than normal right now and we are here talking winter time when things tend to be more slow and tedious in every way with the prevailing lack of light. The normal pace is completely opposite to the spring out coming of all the beautiful summer butterflies shedding their winter cocoons of multilayered warm clothing and dressing colourful and light, even with the weather not agreeing on it.

Awaiting snow

There is no snow in southern Finland at this moment, which is quite unusual for this time of year, both according to the statistics as well as to my own experience.

We might sadly enough be having another black Xmas this year again, the second in a row and Xmas never seems to be the same with snow absent as decoration to give a festive spirit.

Yesterday there was only 25 cms of snow to my great disappointment, and that was way furthest up in north according to the weather forecast, which means the skiing season here in southern Finland will also have to wait to be opened much to the disappointment of the offspring. There would of course be the option of making some snow artificially of course, but with the temperatures being on and off around zero degrees Celsius it would only be a waste of time as it keeps melting away and it is no better in the European Alps either by the looks on TV from various World cup skiing venues. There the surrounding countryside was also almost bare of snow and the skiing slopes must have been laid with artificial snow.

Anyway, this season’s first ice fishing apparently went well last weekend, no casualties such as taking a dip in the icy cold water of a lake, despite my lack of trust on the ice being strong enough. No catch of fish though, much to the disappointment of our cats, but what they are not aware of they do not complain about.

Fortunately I still have some perch from earlier catches this autumn to serve them, even thought it seems our gentleman prefers winter fished perch and I can not tell the difference myself, or might it be that the perch from some lake are better than the other? At least there I can tell a difference in colour but have not personally found any difference in taste, but then I do not eat that tiny little fish as often as the cats do as there size has no what so ever matter. Just the way you make use of it, the fish I mean.

Xmas preparations

If you have been reading my Blog for some time you know I am a sucker for this Christmas calendar lottery ticket that you scratch every day and on Xmas Eve see if you have won. This year there is also an additional 100.000 Euros to be won on TV and with one ticket you might have three different wins between 10 and 25.000 Euros.

I have been used to having a Christmas Calendar show running from December 1^st to Christmas Eve for the children and the ones broadcasted here in Finland each year has not been quite up to the standards I was used to when growing up. Nothing bad, just different cultures, but this year I was surprised to find out that there actually is one for grown ups. It is a Xmas calendar show on TV every single day from December 1^st to December 24^th with tips and hints on making Xmas.

The program includes food recipes which wchihc are perfomed in front of the camera so you can see how it is to be done, tips and hints for making your own Xmas decorations and on decorating your home for the Holliday season. And the best of all, you can find the tpis on Internet, so you don’t have to sit there with open ready in hand in order to get it all right the first time. They even give you some tips on presents to give away.

Which is nice if you run out of ideas, and making decorations with your kids is nice as you can keep the decorations and hang them in the tree when your offspring have their own children.

10% lefties

Did you know that about 10% of the population of the world is left handed and whether you are destined to be right- or left-handed is destined by our genes? They say that left-handed people are no more accident prone than right handed, well if I were left handed I night change that statistics. The scientists further say that the same inherited gene most certainly causes left-handedness but it also determines whether you might become schizophrenic or not.

Anyway, I have lately been very busy writing, well obviously not this Blog of mine, that you might have guessed already, but this children’s book of mine that has been planned now for years is now finally well on its’ way into becoming reality.

We are both working hard at the moment with the book, both I and my illustrator, and we hope to be able to have the book ready and available for sale by this Christmas. And as it is a Christmas story, about a little cat and the Christmas-tree, it would be quite appropriate too to have it released just in time before Christmas.

Right now I just feel I am running out of time so I will get back to my re-writing after a nice cup of tea.

Black Xmas

Sounds a bit ominous, like the black plague or something but that is the term for no snow-Xmas here in Finland. And that it was in most parts of the country except for way up north. It must then be good for all the homeless then, as it is not as cold as normally. I think it is strange that there actually are people with no homes here in this country, with the weather we normally have in the winter. For 100 years now the Xmas cauldron has been on the streets in this country to collect money during the week before Xmas for people without the means to have a Xmas, and I think it is a disgrace that it still is needed as much today as it was a century ago! I do not understand this talk about Finland as a state of welfare and social security not at Xmas or any other day! Several hundred people are sleeping outdoors as they have nowhere to stay. Maybe this should be the meaning of black Xmas?

Anyway, if something unexpected happened to you like losing your job or becoming ill, then it might take up to 3 months before you start receiving any money, so where do you go then?!? You might end up on the street yourself.

No food, no money for the rent, nowhere to store your things, you just loose everything! And the Finnish Lutheran mind is taught to cope on its’ own, without any help. So even if you would be eligible for social benefits to get by economically so many people do just struggle by, day by day.

Thank God I have a kettle and it is on. And there will soon be a nice cup of tea for me!

Difficult eating

Xmas is always a difficult time if you are into serious TV-watching as no advertising is allowed on TV at Xmas in Finland. How on earth ere you supposed to be able to get your sandwiches in between the programs if no ads in between?!?

Or my biggest Xmas problem being that Donald Duck is not on TV at 3 pm as every year before, so I have recorded it to have it on TV to get the Xmas going at the right hour!

Thank God for burning DVD’s and digi-boxes able to save the programs on their hard-drives!

If they did not exits we would not have to do any promises on New Year’s Eve that we do not keep anyway, as one of the most common one must be to loose some weight, at least after Xmas as it is the time for merriment and to eat. According to the Norse tradition you were to eat as much pork as possible and the midwinter solstice so the coming year would be as giving and plentiful in wealth and harvest as possible, so what we actually still do at Xmas, over eat, is an old pagan tradition, to over-eat!

Holy midnight-mass

Funny little protestant me had to move all the way here to Finland to get closely acquainted with the Catholic Church because of close friends happens to be Catholics!

There is quite a lot to be aware of when participating in a catholic mass being an outsider. For example you can’t go and have communion but you can join the others that participate in the Holy Communion and be blessed by the priest by holding your right hand over your left shoulder.

But the best part of it all is that the congregation keep its' parties together. Image how nice and cosy to go to the Midnight-mass on Christmas Eve and all gather for coffee and chats afterwards in the middle of the night, children and adults and elders instead of having to wake up early in the freezing morning to go to church. Well, this year it was not that cold but anyway.

So now I am considering converting to Catholicism as I prefer to sleep long in the mornings.

Xmas cards

Every year 250000 cards are destroyed by the postal authorities due to wrong or incomplete addresses. They say that a little more attention is paid to tracing the recipient of other consignments such as letters and parcels.

Sad but true that your Xmas card might not arrive to the recipient if you do not have the right the postal code. And on top of that, if you have a common name, and the street address exist in many towns then you might not get all the cards sent to you. But, if you do have an unusual name, as a friend of mine, who received a Xmas card from abroad with just his Surname and the country. The card was delivered just in time before Xmas too, even though it must’ve been sent very late. That must be a Xmas miracle!

Christmas calendar for grown-ups

When we first moved to Finland I used to say that I must remember to buy myself a Xmas calendar lottery ticket, and as the years went by I always forgot to buy the calendar, then I couple years ago my husband remembered it and since then he always buys me one every December. It is ever so thrilling to every morning first I make myself a nice cup of tea and I scrape off the cover of that day’s door on the lottery-ticket and see what is in there. And every year I have had 8 Santa Clauses, out of 9 possible. If you have 9 you win 10.000 Euros, which would be great shopping!

Anyway, I think it is great that they have come up with this more grown up idea of a calendar, instead of chocolates for kids with this one you might win some money!

Surviving gingerbread-hell

One of our Christmas traditions has been baking gingerbread and most of the years it has always developed into hell making them.

Traditionally I make the gingerbread dough myself, as I am very picky about the taste and we have tried various doughs during the years, some were very tasty but almost impossible to make any gingerbread cookies of, others were easy to bake but tasted nothing like the gingerbread used to when I was a child.

Anyway, the off-spring normally has been making the cookies with various results depending on their age and ability. As long as this Christmas tradition has been going on it has always sooner (which means fighting about having to bake the cookies) or later (having fights with the dough been thrown around in the kitchen) become hell, at least for me.

Do you know what I mean here ?!?

Well, this year for the first time there was no fights, no tears just peaceful cooking activities in the kitchen! And only minor cleaning for me to do afterwards.

I must be getting old as it does not distress me as much anymore, or might it be that the off-spring has become older to behave better? Are they finally growing up?

A blended family Xmas

What about a blended family Xmas?

Is it possible to juggle together a nice, pleasant family Xmas if you live in a blended family with visitation rights? As more and more families live this parting and visiting as part of their everyday life, just trying to make it fit for everybody is hard, or is to impossible?

For example, a friend of mine remarried some years ago, (and a nice wedding it was, and what a hat I wore!) she has a daughter from her previous marriage and the father has visitation rights on holidays and extended weekends as he lives abroad, and her “new” husband has two sons that live with their mother and they are supposed to be visiting their father very other weekend, as also every other Xmas and other holidays as is customary here in Finland.

So can you plan when also taking in consideration your other family as well, as Finnish tradition is to get together with your family on Xmas Eve? It means that you visit your maternal and paternal grandparents at alternating Xmases together with your own siblings, (the aunts and uncles of your own children), and their cousins.

Guess this means Family Xmas here.

(And it can mean a lot of people if you have 7 brothers and sisters together with their spouses and children, as another good friend of mine has.)

Anyway, this other friend of mine has so far not had one Xmas that has worked out as planned!

Their children are supposed to be at “home” every other Xmas, every paired year like now 2006, both her own child and the husband’s children the same Xmas. Every other Xmas of these when the children are at home, they are to be alternating every Xmas Eve with her parents and his parents house.

So every other Xmas they are supposed to have a family-Xmas, and every other Xmas they are free, without any kids at all, like a honeymoon. Or at least they should be free and celebrating a new honeymoon. But always something has ruined their planned Xmas vacation in the sun.

Last year the daughter’s visiting got cancelled by her father, meaning cancellation of travelling plans to the sun. Or the Xmas before when the sons were on a Xmas-cruise to Sweden with their mother and did not turn up at all at their own grandmothers! How do you explain that to your old grandmother of 90 years? You just hope it is not one of her clear days and that she forgets about it fast.

So it seems that they have a Xmas tradition of not having their plans work out any Xmas.

I wonder if they do too much planning instead of go as it comes?

But I am a bit envious on her I have to confess, as I do not have any relatives to go to at Xmas here in Finland. My grandmother is dead and I would prefer to stay at home for Xmas anyway, so no harm done in the end.

Santa Lucia?

I am used to celebrate Santa Lucia on December 13^th, and also here in Finland the Swedish-speaking part of the population celebrates the same catholic saint from Smyrna in Sicily if I remember it correctly. Lucia with a candle-lit crown is the bringer of light in the dark northern night, just before the light changes to grow again on December 21^st.

Beautiful blonde girls dressing up in white traditional old-fashioned nightgowns, candles in their hands singing traditional Christmas Carrols and reciting poems to the merriment of the others.

Lucia with her maiden companions visit schools, hospitals and retirement-homes to cheer people up, they also have traditional public appearances outdoors. This is quite a nice tradition I think, but I am always as surprised as last time I saw it, when I see how tall the candles in the Finnish Lucia’s candle-crown are!

They must be especially made and hard to wear with the candles that tall and to walk around with them lit!

Anyway, this year the Finnish Lucia went to court the President on December 19^th, which I think is quite odd.

Guess this must be one off the things I will keep on wondering about here.