More snow - lets go down the slide!

Happy Times with Santa

Wild & Crazy on Christmas Eve

Please tilt your head as the video of Noah going down the slope is not upright.

Winter Wonderland!

The days leading up to Christmas have been very exciting. Santa or Tomten as he is called here, is expected to make an appearance tomorrow and Noah knows that he will knock on the door and bring him presents. As soon as Noah sees a pictures of Santa he knocks on the closest thing that's next to him and says "Tap" which is what he calls Tomten.

Also we are lucky to have snow. Noah, as you can imagine, loves it all. He eats it, plays in it, goes down the slopes and tries to walk in the deep snow. I myself haven't seen snow since I was 7 or 8 years old, so I enjoy it as much as Noah.

Even though I miss my family over the festive season, it truly feels like Christmas in this winter wonderland. The temperature got down to -17 on one particular day......that was uncomfortable. But for the most part it has been great to go out in -5 to -10 degrees to see the snow covering the roads, trees, cars and houses. It feels like something out of a fairy tale, I must say it is a very special feeling.

Once we have established ourselves in Sweden it will be hard to leave behind the snow of winter. Inside the comfort of the house we are warm and cosy, so its not so hard to admire the weather conditions outside and celebrate it by baking, drinking warm drinks, eating great food and sharing time with family. Next Christmas and December will be very different; we will both be working, Noah will be in day care, and less time to appreciate the atmosphere.

I'm sorry to say that I don't miss the 35+ degree heat, hot car seats, mountains of sunscreens and trying to escape the heat. The Swedes that prefer Australia over Sweden may be proven right in the future, but the novelty of our first white Christmas will not wear off for some time.........you're crazy to give this up!!

Here are some of our finer moments of the past few days......in the snow!

Christmas Market

In Götene, 6km from Lundsbrunn there was a Christmas market on the weekend with lots of fun to do for little kids. Big hits were the fire truck, the horses and the trainride around town...

Curious George in Town

This Sunday, one of Noah's favorite characters was visiting a shopping centre in Lidköping, a town about 16 km from Lundsbrunn. Mormor, Noah and I took the shopping list and drove over snowy landscapes to Lidköping to greet "Nicke Nyfiken" (the Swedish name for Curious George).

Nicke's first stop was a the shoe store where they also have a little play table for the kids. We came a bit early and Noah was happy to play and wait at the table. In fact, so happy that when Nicke finally came through the doors, whilst the other kids ran up to him, Noah leisurely sat put and continued to play - not at all interested in his furry friend.

Luckily, Nicke was staying for a while and after about 20 minutes, Noah finally warmed up to him. He walked up to the big monkey, gave him a high five, a big hug, smiled and said: "Nicke!". After that, it was only "Nicke, Nicke, Nicke!" and Noah followed him everywhere, gave him toys to play with and wanted to hug him all the time.

When it was time for Nicke to leave, to our surprise, Noah was happy to wave bye bye and to come with us for some grocery shopping. Having Noah with me, who is a real boy and doesn't likes shops, I would need Nicke to pop around every time we go shopping ;-).

All I want for Christmas is....SNOW!

The wish came true - it has been snowing for the past two days! Today it was enough snow to bring out the pulka; a short, low-slung small toboggan. Lets just say the sled was a big hit, with both the boys! Check out the video below!

Celebrating Santa Lucia

13 December is when the Swedes celebrate St Lucia! This is done through the tradition of Lussevaka – to stay awake on the night between 12th till 13th and guard oneself against being taken by Lucifer lord of darkness (!) by having an all night party ;-). This is still carried out today mostly by the younger population having great parties. (When the light then arrives with the morning you are safe again.) But since Shawn and I are no longer that young and strong for an allnighter we settled for the more traditional celebration;
A procession/a ceremony where a girl is elected to portray Lucia... Wearing a white gown with a red sash and a crown of candles on her head, she walks at the head of a procession of women, each holding a candle and singing Christmas songs. There are nowadays also boys in the procession, playing different roles associated with Christmas. Some may be dressed in the same kind of white robe, but with a cone-shaped hat decorated with golden stars, called stjärngossar (star boys); some may be dressed up as "tomtenissar", carrying lanterns; and some may be dressed up as gingerbread men. With Noah's new found love for ginger bread cookies, you would think that the latter would be the natural choice of costume but we went for the tomtenisse outfit this year. Worth mentioning, is that when Noah saw the boys with the cone-shaped hats he bursted out, with a smile on his face: "GLASS!!" (icecream) so maybe that will be his pick next year!!

Today, we took part in the Lucia celebrations held by the church down the road from us. Below is a short video from the kids Lucia procession. We have been practicing at the weekly sing/play group but Noah was too amazed by the experience to take tune.

The Final Product

Our Master Piece - the ginger bread house.

From saffron buns to ginger bread cookies...

Noah LOVES baking, I dunno where he got that from ;-)... It's always fun to bake and eat the final product but Noah also finds great joy in quickly put a piece of dough in the mouth when nobody is watching and then give off sounds of pleasure and awaits our, again, "surprised" faces. "Nice" he then clarifies.

A few days in the big city

We spent 5 days in Göteborg or City of Gothenburg which is the official English name. It was a very cold week, with -7 one morning. Even though we have winter clothes we weren't prepared when it came to the shoe department - next on the list: get a pair of winter shoes each! Luckily Noah had 2 big bags full of clothing and winter shoes waiting for him when we first got to Sweden, all handed down by a dear friend of mine, so he stays warm at all times.

The days in Göteborg turned out to be very fruit full for Shawn has he got through a pair of interviews at a big gym chain in the city, got shown around by the owners of a brand new studio soon to open as well as an offer to do a practicum at a friend's naprapat clinic. He'll get around to write about it soon..but pretty much it means that Shawn will be moving to Göteborg on his own in early January! Noah and I will move to the city when I get a job.

It was lovely to spend some time with Annelie & Tony, especially since we got to celebrate Annelie's 30th birthday together. We also managed to catch up with Susanne & Janne (the naprapat) whom also are friends with Frida & Fred in Australia - small world!

One night we paid Liseberg's Christmas market a visit. Every year during the month of December, Liseberg, Göteborg's themepark, hosts Sweden's biggest x-market. Most of the rides are open too and Noah got to try out four of them. But after a couple of hours we had to head back to the apartment, all due to the cold weather or maybe more correctly; due to our poor choice of clothing :-).

Back in Lundsbrunn, we are now starting to prep the food for Christmas, and I'm back in the virtual world keeping an eye out for jobs!

The three of us at Liseberg