Midsommar

Midsommar is a big deal in Sweden. There's the same sort of pressure to have a great midsommar as there is to have a really exciting, unforgettable New Year's every year (or maybe that's just my neurosis?). The city clears out as everyone goes "to the country" to celebrate with family and friends. Of course there's various events in the cities, but the real midsommar parties are on in yards tucked away in all corners of the country. Midsommar is a celebration of summer (go figure), but oddly is not celebrated on the solstice as one might think, but the Friday before. This year it was June 19. Anyway, the festivities involve dancing around a self-made maypole decked in greens and flowers, like this one at Trevor and Malin's house: The dancing is done to songs called things like "3 small frogs" and involves hopping around saying "oink oink" and the like. In other words, it's hardly somber.And then of course there's the food and booze. After pigging out on strawberries and cream at Trevor and Malin's in the afternoon, we went to Ulf's house (a colleague of Adrian's) for a delicious meal that included various pickled herrings, boiled potatoes, cheese tarts, fruit, crispbread, meatballs, and, of course, schnaps (note the bowl of mini bottles in the picture below). Ulf made one traditional dish that is done in a cake pan and is a layered concoction of crushed brown bread topped with sweet pickled herring, onions and sour cream. Kind of odd and tasty at once.
Ulf has a gorgeous big yard, and Ava, Julian and Priya spent most of the evening wandering around exploring the bushes and eating cheese doodles. After we left around 8pm I think the party went on until 3 or 4am and involved lots more schnaps, which I'm told is pretty standard for midsommar gatherings. It was great to be part of a really Swedish tradition and get the inside scoop, even if we were in bed before everyone else.

Christmas

We had a lovely, quiet Christmas this year. The pro of being abroad for the holidays is that you get to do whatever you want and eat whatever and when you want on Christmas Eve/Day. You're not beholden to anyone else's agenda, traditions or obligations. So to celebrate not having to navigate my dear family's eating requirements (low carb, vegetarian, no red meat for those who DO eat meat, etc.), we had roast beef with gravy and creamed horseradish, potato and mushroom gratin, yorkshire pudding, green beans with bacon and red peppers and chocolate mousse pie. Can you tell I was being reactionary?! The cons of being abroad are not being able to hang out with your family laughing about silly things, and not having said family around to watch children who might be a little crazed from, say, too many presents and too much mousse pie.
The kids were of course very cute opening their presents on Christmas morning. Ava was all about the unwrapping and less about the presents and Julian just ate raisins like a maniac all morning. I offer him raisins all the time, but somehow the raisins that Adrian gave me (yes, he gave me raisins) really floated his boat and he carried the red pot around with him all morning until Adrian finally took it away fearing some, er, repercussions later in the day. Anyway, many of the other pictures involve me having a very bad hair morning so I won't post any more here. Those are Julian's favorite PJs, by the way. He loves them. Those and his Italia T-shirt from my Mom. Choice.
On Christmas day we went sledding, or sledging as Adrian calls it, on some frosty grass at the park around the corner. Being from San Francisco, it would never have occurred to me to sled down some grass, frosty or otherwise, but that's why you marry a non-native I guess and it worked out perfectly. After that we strolled downtown for some people watching and went out for hot chocolate before coming home to watch Peter Pan. It was great day.

I make a quip or two on this blog, but quips aside, Adrian and I feel so blessed to have each other as partners and such wonderful, healthy, happy children, and to be experiencing this time abroad together as a family. So far Sweden has been a terrific adventure.

We wish you and your families happy holidays and a peaceful, joyful New Year. We hope you all get to spend time with the people you love. See you in 2009!!

Lights of Liseberg

When I was little we used to drive by the Chevron refinery in Richmond off of I-80 on our way back from Sacramento late at night. The oil refinery was lit up with a million lights and I'd say "Mom, look, there's heaven!" Well, I think Ava feels the same way about Liseberg right now, and probably more appropriately so. It looks great right now, with lights, fake snow and Christmas booths everywhere. They also have these great BBQ stands filled with glowing coals that are just for warming your hands. Love those. For the kids there's an ice-skating rink, learn-to-ski slope, reindeer sleigh rides, and the regular kiddie rides, of course. I never thought I'd be going on a roller-coaster in the snow, but there you go!

Advent

Advent is here and you can't miss it because nearly every window has either an electric "ljustake" (triangular candle holder thingy) or advent star in it these days. In fact, there are candles and lights EVERYWHERE, including, I might add, in the daycare centers and preschools. Young children and candles don't mix in MY mind, but there are so many darned candles in Sweden I guess you have to start them out young.

The statue in the picture above is of Poseidon on Götaplatsen, just a stone's throw from our apartment. They've been showing a surreal outdoor "Christmas movie" on the facade of the art museum behind him a few times a night over the past few days. The movie involves mermaids singing merry Christmas, trams, crabs and some heavy metal band doing a Christmas tune. I'm not sure I get it, but I like it.

Adrian and I are digging Christmas in Sweden. I love the Christmas markets filled with slightly creepy stuffed gnomes, saffron-spiked lussekatter, pickled herring, sweet-roasted almonds, and glögg (spicey drink with raisins floating in it). Here's me appreciating said glögg (while chewing a pepparkaka) in Haga:
Everything is just so darned cozy right now. The lights, the candles, the shearling-lined boots ... Good thing, because otherwise the fact it's full-on dark at 4pm would be downright depressing. (As an aside, we have been eating dinner around 5:45pm because it feels so late by then. I think I finally get why Midwesterners are famous for eating early.)

Ava's school had their Christmas bazaar today (spelled bazarre, which I found bizarre) and she was not sure about her face-painting:
Otherwise, the kids had a great time (read: ate lots of cookies) and played for a long time in the "pillow room" together, which was very cute. People keep commenting that Julian has really grown. It's true of course (I mean, kids do that), but I think it's more that he's turned the corner from baby to little boy recently, which the picture below captures pretty well. I walked passed him the other day at school and didn't recognize him because he looked too old to be mine!

Happy (early) Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving meal on Saturday. Gen (in the polka dot top) and Tor were there with their daughter, Milena, as were Merel (with the blond hair) and her husband Denis. Julian and Milena are classmates and have a special relationship that involves a lot of kissing and hugging, which they were happy to demonstrate for us.

The turkey turned out great, thanks to brining and lots of butter squirted under the skin before roasting. The pumpkin pie was also a hit, which sort of surprised me, as Adrian is pretty adamant that it's gross and I've begun to think of it like peanut butter and root beer, i.e. only something you like if you're American and you've grown up with it. So I was happy that our non-American guests liked it (or at least humored me and pretended to).

Of course the best thing was the lovely company and lots of chatting about nothing in particular (my favorite topic). I loved Merel and Denis' description of Dutch Christmas, which involves black men from Spain on boats, wooden shoes, big ginger cookies, and no presents on Christmas itself.

I don't know if we did much to convince Merel and Denis to have kids because Milena had an allergic reaction to something, poor thing, and got red and puffy, Julian was up until midnight because of his recent "I hate my bed" attitude, and Ava insisted on sprinting everywhere the entire night.

Turkey Day

Thanksgiving is technically next Thursday, November 27, but we are celebrating a little early this year. We'll be hosting friends this Saturday for a semi-traditional meal. Semi-traditional because Adrian is not a fan of:

• Turkey
• Cranberries
• Pumpkin
• Sweet potatoes
• Stuffing

In short, he dislikes all the crucial ingredients of a traditional Thanksgiving feast. He is, however, the only person I know who actually likes brussel sprouts. We are compromising and having turkey and pumpkin pie, but regular potatoes and a chocolate dessert in addition to the pie. Brussel sprouts are permanently outlawed.

Finding the ingredients has been less of a goose chase than expected. I bought a nice Swedish turkey from Saluhallen. He must have been nice because he cost 470SEK (about $60). And all the other key items are available at the ICA store around the corner (see picture of $7 canned cranberry sauce above), just way more expensive than they'd be at home.

I had to post a picture of the "American" aisle at the ICA. I can understand not being able to live without molasses, Pam, or Karo syrup, but are the following truly necessary to have when you're abroad??:

• Fluff
• Baco-bits
• Jell-o
• Pop-tarts
• Stove top stuffing

I think not. Except maybe the Stove top ... or the Jell-o. But definitely not Fluff.

Halloween

The Halloween season is my favorite time of year. I love fall colors, fall foods and fall weather (no jokes about San Francisco not having any seasons please -- we have seasons, they're just sort of casual, like Californians). And I love a good 'ol American harvest fair, complete with pumpkin patches, scarecrows, hay rides, pumpkin pie and little craft booths filled with stuff you'd never actually buy. And then of course there's Halloween itself, which when you're a kid is the best night of the year except for the night before Christmas morning because of the ridiculous amounts of candy you get to collect and consume in a single night.

Anyway, long story short, there's no Halloween in Sweden and I'm confused. I'm not ready for the stores to have all their Christmas Crap on display yet. In the U.S. we have the Halloween Crap and the Thanksgiving Crap to prime the pump for Santa. I'm like: "You want me to think about Christmas? Hello! I'm still mourning summer! Give me a little candy corn and pumpkin pie and then we'll talk." The American Women's Club of Gothenburg did a nice job of putting on a fun kiddie event at a local school (complete with crafts, mini trick or treating, games and a "cake walk," which I'd never heard of before coming to Sweden) the Sunday before Halloween. Here's Ava and Julian peacefully enjoying the decorate-a-skull craft table. This lasted all of 2.32 minutes by the way:And here's a shot of the main hall:
Ava's school, ABC, also had a little Halloween party on the 31st (see pic below), so the kids weren't totally Halloweenless this year, but I think Ava and I were feeling a little down about the whole thing.
It was probably NOT the best idea then to show Ava online pictures of her buddies Everett and Miles celebrating Halloween (in, I must say, very excellent home-made tiger and bat costumes). The slideshow went over like a tone of bricks and you could just see her face droop and her eyes start to tear up. She was fine 20 minutes later, but that was definitely a bad-mama move.

Now what could possibly cheer us up after missing our Halloween traditions? Hmmm. I'm thinking, just maybe, the one thing that could do it would be... GOOOBAMA!!!!!!!!!!! TWO MORE DAYS! TWO MORE DAYS!

Cinnamon Bun Day

Yes, there is an official day to celebrate the cinnamon bun (kanelbulle) in Sweden and it's today! Happy Kanelbulle Dag to you!

4th of July

Nothing doing in Sweden (and especially not if you're married to a Brit) but I did have a private little celebration of US independence on our balcony the evening of the (hot and humid) 4th as I listened to Bruce Springsteen tunes wafting over from Ullevi stadium. Apparently he was on fire that night.