The 24th

Before I start going back in time, to try to show you what we've been up to, I think I should start with the present moment. Right now I'm rather relaxed. Yesterday I took D to his dad and after that I have been reading, watching tv, did a bit of zumba in the living room this morning, put henna in my hair, had a long bath and am planning to read more tonight. I'm not even going to go to church for carol singing - I really value my own time.

This year I realized our old Christmas traditions are really changing - and that is just a good thing. One change is that the

livingroom looks different now - now I'm really happy with the furniture! Also the timetable was different now. I'd rather have it this way - I think the "old Christmas feeling", which I've had before and not now, was connected to a calm, when everything follows a certain order and everything is ready and you can just enjoy the clean house, the candles and colors of Christmas.

This year D was more active and we also had a guest in the house - one of the refugees joined us. He is now 18, so I'm not his guardian anymore, but I hope we'll stay friends. He is wonderful company to D - so I could prepare food etc in peace and quiet. Unfortunately it was - 26 degrees outside, so going to the graveyard to light candles was not quite as pleasant as it used to be. I also forgot to serve the ham :), but instead I tried

a new thing. A second cousin to me gave us moose meat and I decided that would be great on the Christmas table. And it was! This was the first time I'd ever prepared it, since I don't even know where you could get hold of it (maybe in the markets, but I've never thought of looking for it!).

Unfortunately my good camera gave up - it refused to take any photos when it was dark, so these are just snapshots with the small camera, and as a consequence, not really good quality.

D and I were doing a bit of baking, but he stayed for about five minutes :).

In Swedish Santa's helpers are "tomtar" - so here you have four "tomtar" that celebrated Xmas together :).

D had so waited for Santa and all his presents - in the evening in bed he sighed happily: "Santa is sooo nice" :).

The 24th felt a bit chaotic, but on the other hand I've always felt it was almost too lonely a day, I hope we can always have guests for Christmas from now on!

D and A tried out a lot of the toys in the evening :).