A new beginning...Part två (2)

hello friends! here i am again, hoping part two will be as well received as part one was! i took a very long walk today (which i took plenty of photos on for all of you!) and had plenty of time to think about what i wanted to blog about for my second posting and decided that christmas was a good subject. i even have some pictures and video! so here we go...round two: ding ding ding!

christmas here in sweden is celebrated a little bit differently then christmas in america. first of all, all of the family visiting, the gift exchanging and opening, and delicious food happens on christmas eve. so with presents comes santa. he visits on the 24th as well. there is no stockings, at least in this family (going to try and start that tradition next year) and no cookies and milk for santa. hugo, petrus' sisters (sara) oldest son, hugo, is a bit of a worrier and he was a little afraid of santa. i mean, i don't blame the child, the guy is huge and he sneaks into peoples homes and eats their food. but he does bring gifts! hugo still believes in santa but he announced that if he didn't get what he asked for this year that he is no longer a believer. lucky for santa, he has maybe one more year with this sweet kid.

santa dropped the gifts off on the front step (luckily for hugo, his own mother has santa's phone number and called and asked him not to come in and scare the young man) and we began handing them out. this new family of mine has a very fun tradition of writing poems that the recipient must read before opening the gift. the poems traditionally have something to do with the gift that is being received. everyone was gracious enough to write my poems in english so that i could understand it but i think they all had a little bit of a difficult time with it. i thought they were all fantastic. here is a little example of a few of them:

"Emily
i hope these will fit your little hand
now that you have changed your land.
God Jul 
önskar/ Ulla"
 -She gave me some wool mittens. They do fit and they are so warm!

"If you like to cook a seal,
the first thing you need to do is peel.
The flippers and his cute little head,
maybe we could eat it with bread.
If you instead prepare a hog,
this is surely will be moist as bog!
Oink oink! Merry Xmas" (from Petrus)
-I got a crock pot. I might have squealed with happiness..

"God Jul Emily!
Från Simon och Fanny
The world can be cold
and you are not bold...
With this on your skin,
you can do everything."
-They gave me some thermal underwear. Very very nice!

i have a few more but i think you all get the idea.

for dinner we had all kinds of food. everyone brought something they made for dinner. petrus and i made the meatballs (which were a big hit), there was ham, bread, herring, dill potatoes (requested by me), pickled beats, and so much other wonderful things! (i can't quite remember what all we had as that was three weeks ago)

i almost forgot! christmas eve morning we went sledding!! it was a very beautiful white christmas in sweden this year. it really made me feel less homesick and more cheerful.

 a lovely view from the front of the Johansson's house.

hugo and wille sledding!

 

 petrus and erik packing snow for a little more oomph on the ride down.

 

a short video for your viewing pleasure. this is hugo (age 6) and wille (age 2) sledding. no one was hurt in this video.

 i think he shed three whole tears and then he was back on top of the hill for more. 

snow fight between hugo and me.

 he tackled me. i am not crushing him! look at wille in the background! so cute!!

 some of the delicious food being prepared.

 the tree we went out into "the woods" for. we cut and carried it back to the house and petrus and i decorated it. those are candles. this is one of the two times they were lit.

 petrus and wille relaxing on christmas

 my first glögg in sweden! homemade and delicious!

 christmas was expected to be difficult but it went much better than i thought it would be. i am so grateful and blessed to be around such caring and uplifting people! it was even better that on christmas day i was able to skype with my parents! it was there first christmas in 26 years without either of their kids. i am hoping that maybe next year we can join the two families for a christmas together!

i hope you all had a lovely christmas holiday! here is a very belated merry christmas and god jul to all of you!