At the store before Halloween...
My friend gave me my first paper lighted star...it comes folded and you pop it open and hang it in the window...
We bought a couple more paper lighted stars, but these are on lamps...
I managed to get my pre-lit tree and a few strands of lights I didn't realize I still had plugged into a converter that Thomas bought for one of our tv's, and it worked! I was thrilled. I haven't put ornaments on it yet, but it still looks beautiful!
The center of town in decorated with lights too and in some of the main round-abouts that had beautiful flowers growing from them in the summer, they have replaced that with trees that are lit up as well.
Every single house has either lighted stars or candelabras in almost every window and it looks very Christmasy...I had an impression that they didn't decorate as much as the American's, but I think that they do almost as much. The difference is it is always white lights and no characters such as Santa or reindeer, but people have trees out in their yard, or bushes that they decorate.
We are going to miss a few celebrations because we will be headed to Florida next weekend, but they do some fun things that are very Christmasy around here. For instance, this Friday evening, they will have the town's crowned St. Lucia singing in the town center and at their church. For a month or so, there has been a ballot and in the town newspaper, they have the nominees who are high school aged girls that have singing backgrounds who you can vote on to be the town's St. Lucia for this year. They sing traditional Swedish songs and I am hoping to make it to see this on Friday.
Last weekend, while we were in Norway, the boy's school had a Christmas Market that we missed, and next weekend there will be another Christmas Market at this hotel that Thomas was in town for last year that is supposed to be really fun too...
The one other thing that I will not get a chance to experience this year, it the Julbord (pronounced yule board). It is a very traditional Swedish Smorgasbord for Christmas. Many restaurants put on their own versions of this and it is mainly a fancy buffet dinner with traditional foods that Swedish people have for Christmas. We were going to try to go with Thomas' company's International Club and it would have been a great deal because normally the adult price at this particular restaurant was $75, but the company was discounting it for this club and it would only have been about $40 for adult and $30 for child, but Thomas was traveling that day so maybe next year. My friend who did go was so kind to send pictures though so I thought I would share what a very fancy Julbord looked like...
They typically start with cold fish...
Then they have cold meats (I have heard sliced bear is good) and pâté...
3rd course was hot food, Meatballs, Game (maybe elk?) Stew, etc.,
Moving on to Fancy Cheeses...
Dessert served in two bite portions...
The funny thing is IKEA is advertising a Julbord for about $20/person and I thought about taking the boys out one evening this week just to check it out, might not be so fancy, but we will at least experience our first Swedish Julbord. Stay tuned for that...
There were a couple of excuses for not celebrating Thanksgiving this year...
Thomas was traveling that day and we celebrated Ben's birthday on the Saturday after Thanksgiving...But one of the main reasons I didn't make the famous turkey dinner was the logistics.
Up until about one week before, I couldn't even find a turkey for sale, here is the one lonely turkey I finally saw for sale in the local grocery store...
I did manage to make a pumpkin pie (ok...butternut squash pie), from scratch the weekend before though and we did eat a bite on Thanksgiving...
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