A Thousand Candles

Advent Calendar / 7 December

Listen at YouTube to one of the most common Swedish Christmas hymns, “Nu tändas tusen juleljus” – “We light a thousand candles bright”. (Sung in Swedish by ABBA singer Agnetha Fältskog and daughter back in 1980.)

Here is an English translation of the lyrics which I found at www.hymnlyrics.org:

We light a thousand candles bright, around the earth today,
And all the beams will shine across the heaven's grand display.
Yes, over land and sea tonight the joyful message brings
The birth of Him, our Lord and Christ, our Savior and our King.
Dear brightest star o'er Bethlehem, O let your precious light
Shine in with hope and peace toward men in ev'ry home tonight.
In all our house so cold and dark, please send your warmth sublime,
The warmth that comes from Jesus' love this blessed Christmas time.

Quotation of the Week (45/2010)

Advent Calendar / 6 December

"It’s sharing your gifts, not purchasing gifts;
It’s not wrapping presents, its being present
and wrapping your arms around the ones you love;
It’s not getting Christmas cards out on time,
It’s sending any card, anytime, at the right time;
It’s not having the biggest and best Christmas light display,
It’s displaying the Christ light that comes from your heart;
It’s not Santa coming down the chimney,
It’s Jesus coming down from heaven,
and giving us the gift of eternal life."

~ Source: Anonymous ~

The maker of the wreath is also unknown to me.
The photo is mine, but feel free to copy it if you like. 

Memories of Christmas Trees

Advent Calendar / 5 December 

This is another page in my first photo album, from the Christmas when I was 16 months old. (Compare yesterday’s post.)

Mum’s drawing of the Christmas tree brings back memories, too. They used to have Swedish flags in the tree, like that, pinned into the tops of a twig. (Getting them in there, usually came with some -  well, let’s call it ‘muttering between the teeth’ - because the end of that flagstick was sharp, and so were the needles on the spruce!)

I think the tree depicted might have been inspired by my paternal grandparents’ tree, because they used to have those old-fashioned sweet-wrapper kind of ornaments, and the small “tomte”/Santa figures made of yarn; and I think back in those days they also did still have real candles in the tree, not electric ones.

 

       

The tree at my other grandparents’ house was different. For one thing they must have had electric candles in theirs, because what I remember best about it is that they covered every little light-bulb with something called “angel’s hair”. I guess it was meant to resemble snow. I can’t find any picture of that.

Our Christmas tree at home was kept rather strict. Mum and dad did not want all kinds of ‘odd’ ornaments in it. I guess they thought that would disrupt the symmetry of things. However, when we moved into a bigger house, we used to have a second, smaller tree in the kitchen as well. In that one my brother and I were allowed to hang our own strange and wonderful creations from school, or other odd pieces of decoration. What those might have been, I hardly remember any more. Only that they were not to be mixed with the “proper” ornaments in the big tree.

- Now this is a “proper” classic Christmas ornament! -

The Christmas tree was not put up, or at least not decorated, until the day before Christmas Eve. Traditionally I think parents did this after the children had gone to bed, so that it was just there as a surprise in the morning. My memories, however, include a lot of muttering, not only about those flags, and the star at the top, but also about getting the tree itself to stand straight, and getting the light-chain untangled (it really is a mystery how a carefully folded light-chain always seems to manage to tie itself into knots all by itself in its box from one Christmas to another – but I suppose it gets bored, having nothing else to do for so long!), and then getting the lights evenly distributed across the tree, and… Well.

The first ten years of my adult life, I never spent Christmas in my own flat, and I never bothered about getting a Christmas tree. My own personal traditions came to be centered more around Advent than the actual Christmas. I was also somewhat “allergic” to Santa/gnome-figures, so for many years didn’t have any of those either. (I blogged about this last year in The Return of the Gnomes.)

Now since many years I have a small artificial tree, only 60 cm high, which I do decorate every Christmas. It serves me well enough! I usually put it up just a few days before Christmas. Never this early. The whole point of the Advent time in December for me is that it is supposed to be a gradual thing… Just like the Advent calendar.

Christmas Gifts and Memories

Advent Calendar / 4 December

Behind the door in my advent calendar today was someone who came bearing gifts.

♥ Were Christmas gifts important in your childhood traditions?
♥ Can your remember any special gifts in the past?
♥ What about now, how do you feel about Christmas gifts?

Thanks to my mother, I remember some of the things I got for Christmas when I was 16 months old. Besides putting photos in an album for me, she also added some extra drawings:

“Oh, so many Christmas presents!”

I remember some of these toys. The two look-alike dolls, one big, one small… They were both stuffed with straw, with celluloid faces; not quite as soft as many modern cuddly toys, and certainly not as washable. With time, they got rather worn and dirty, and I think mum had some struggle getting me to give them up eventually! (When, I cannot say.) The big doll was named Britta, and the small one Anna. That is not written down anywhere, that’s just still in my head. Both names occur in a well-known story by our beloved children’s book author Astrid Lindgren. But I can’t have known that at the age of 16 months. Can I? (At what age do little girls start giving names to their dolls?) The little round baby doll I have no memory of except for this picture.

The dachshund on wheels was made of wood and that one I think had rather a long life. Might even have been inherited by my brother (six years my junior). Or did he have his own? The leash used to get tangled up in the wheels. The cat was also made of wood, and that you could pick apart and put together again.

Nowadays I neither buy nor receive a lot of Christmas gifts. There are a couple of friends I usually exchange a small something with, just for fun… (Neither of us have any children or grandchildren.)

I can’t help it, I still like the anticipation of opening parcels… Perhaps I should wrap some for myself this year. Mind you, that doesn’t mean one has to go out and buy all new stuff… I’m thinking I might wrap up some of the DVD’s or books I’ve already got waiting, that I have not seen or read yet (or that I want to re-watch, or reread). Or CD’s I haven’t listened to for a while. If I make the parcels now, I might even have forgotten by Christmas what’s in each of them. It looks like I’ll be spending Christmas  on my own this year. Or most of it, anyway. In any case, it will be different from Christmases past. I think it might actually be a good idea to prepare some half-random half-surprises for myself. Not all to be opened at once, but when or if I get slammed by the feeling that I don’t quite know what to do next!

Now Covered In White

Advent Calendar / 3 December

Now covered in white
are the paths I used to walk
watching butterflies

Advent Candles

Advent Calendar / 2 December

Sorry I’m a bit late with this post. We’ve been having broadband problems on and off here over the last few days. Well – I guess I’m not really in time sync with most of my readers anyway… But it’s still very irritating whenever it happens. Not only does it disrupt my own posting – I’ve also not been able to make my usual “rounds” to read other people’s posts.

Opening the second door in my “fire prevention” Advent calendar, I found a wooden candle holder changed into one made of stone; and today’s message was to only use fireproof candle holders.

Three years ago  I took some pictures of Christmas ornaments at my parents’ house. I think I may already have shown some of these last year, but never mind. Anyway, here are two classic candle-holders:

The Advent candle box: This has four candles, one for each Sunday in Advent, and is traditionally filled and decorated with white bog moss, pine-cones, evergreen sprigs etc. Even if the box itself is made of metal, the decorations are usually far from fireproof. Mum and dad were always careful to blow out any candles before they left the table, though.

The three-armed candle holder made of wood, often painted red is another traditional Christmas decoration. This one belonged to my paternal grandparents.

Myself I never light candles in wooden holders now. I’m afraid I might get distracted and forget about them. Or fall asleep…

Below is one of my own favourites for a single candle – the one to the left. (It’s the same one as in yesterday’s picture.) It’s made of wrought iron and it’s made especially to be used for candle-ends.

Advent Calendar / 1 December

When I went to the 1st Advent celebration in the town square on Saturday, some firemen were handing out advent calendars. Do you have them in your Christmas traditions?

The first printed Advent calendar is said to have been produced in Hamburg in 1902 or 1903. In 1908, Gerhard Lang, a printer in the firm Reichhold & Lang of Munich, made 24 little colored pictures that could be affixed to a piece of cardboard. Several years later, he introduced a calendar with 24 little doors instead. The practice disappeared during World War II, but was taken up again after the war by Richard Sellmer of Stuttgart, and from there got spread worldwide. Beginning on the first day of December, one door is opened each day, counting the days remaining until Christmas Eve.

  

The first door on my calendar today was found on the door, and underneath it was a Christmas wreath (on the door)…

There was also something written on the back. It said: “Make a drawing with the text ‘Don’t forget to put out the candles’ and put that on your door.”

Not a bad idea actually… I did not do a drawing, but I used a photo:

Feel free to print it out and put it up on your door if you like.

In the Scandinavian countries, we also get a special Christmas calendar show on TV every day in December. The first one was aired in 1960, I think that was the year we got our first TV (I was 5 years old). Some more memorable than others. Some were really good and fun for the whole family to watch. Others were really bad.

Anyway… I’m sitting here thinking right now that perhaps I should have my own Advent calendar here on the Blog this December…?

Let the first Revelation be that I still enjoy Advent calendars, even though I’m 55 years old and have no children or grandchildren to blame it on!