Writing Christmas Cards

Advent Calendar / 14 December

Help. I’ve got so caught up this year in blogging about Swedish Christmas traditions that I’m getting behind with my own!

I got my few overseas Christmas cards sent off on time last week, but then yesterday I “suddenly” realized that I only had a couple of days left before I also need to post all the European and Swedish ones, which I hadn’t even got started on…

This year I ended up with a mix of cards; ordering about half of them printed from one of my own photos, making a few myself at home (but not as many as I over-optimistically thought I would), using some bought earlier in the autumn at a market, and having to buy some more from the bookshop. There is of course nothing really wrong with that - except that in my case it means too many last minute decisions! (who shall get which card etc)

As Paul Simon says in one of his songs on the album Hearts and Bones: “Maybe I think too much”. (Only in my case there is probably no maybe about it.)

Note to self: Next year, just order enough copies of the same card for everyone!!!

Oh well, I’m almost done now; I’ll put the stamps on tomorrow.

The two cards I chose for you in this blog post were painted by Swedish artist Jenny Nyström (1854-1946). She became famous as the person who created the Swedish image of the jultomte on numerous Christmas cards and magazine covers, linking “Santa Claus” to the gnomes of Scandinavian folklore. Some of her classic cards are still reprinted and sent around every Christmas.

These two hardly belong to the most commonly seen, though. Both are old ones in a small size which I’m not sure is even allowed to send in the post any more. I have a whole bunch of these small old unwritten cards, all different (and most of them by less well known  or even anonymous artists). I’ve had them for more than 30 years, and they seemed old to me even then. They belonged to either my grandmother or her sister.

Quotation of the Week (50/2010) + Lucia (2)

Advent Calendar / 13 December - LUCIA

“A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.”
~ James Keller ~

I did not get to see our town’s Lucia this weekend; but below is another St Lucia video for you, which was made for Swedish television in Mora in 2007, at the home/museum of famous Swedish painter Anders Zorn (1860-1920). This video includes Lucia and her maidens arriving by sleigh ride. You will also get glimpses from the kitchen, and get to see the Lucia carrying a coffee tray with the traditional buns and gingerbread cookies (see yesterday’s post).

Lucia Celebrations (Part I)

Advent Calendar / 12 December

Tomorrow on 13 December we celebrate St Lucia, or St Lucy’s Day in Sweden (and in the other Scandinavian countries as well). It’s not an official holiday, but a very popular occasion in Sweden, celebrated everywhere: at home, publically in the town, in schools, work-places and churches.

This year, as 13 December falls on a Monday, some of the official celebrations are likely to take place on the weekend instead.

But Lucia is also traditionally an early morning event so no doubt there will be Lucia celebrations on Monday morning too.

Photo from Wikipedia

The girl or woman appointed “Lucia” wears a white gown with a red sash and a crown of candles on her head. She walks at the head of a procession of other girls/women (her “maids”) wearing similar white gowns and carrying candles. There may also be boys in the procession, dressed up as “star boys” or (especially with younger children) sometimes in other Christmas-inspired costumes. As Lucia is associated with the Christian martyr St Lucy (283-304), the star boys are associated with St Stephen (the first Christian martyr). While entering the room, they sing a Lucia song describing the light with which Lucia overcomes the darkness.They then go on to singing more Lucia and Christmas carols and songs.

Older Swedish traditions may have gone before, but the current Lucia tradition of a white-dressed woman with candles in her hair appearing on the morning of the Lucia day is said to have started in the area around Lake Vänern in the late 18th century and spread slowly to other parts of the country during the 19th century.

When the celebration takes place in private homes, Lucia traditionally brings Lucia buns, ginger biscuits and coffee.

 
Photos from Wikipedia

Some people prefer the Lucia buns made with saffron, some without. (I like them with saffron, although that was not the tradition in my home when I grew up.) The ginger biscuits come in all kinds of shapes, and lots of varieties in the ingredients too.

The modern tradition of having public Lucia processions in the Swedish cities started in 1927 when a newspaper in Stockholm elected an official Lucia for Stockholm. This spread throughout the country and every town now usually have their own. A national celebration is also broadcasted each year by Swedish television.

Below you can watch the beginning of such a Lucia celebration from Växjö Cathedral in 2009. (Växjö is in South-East Sweden).

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.

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!

1st Advent Weekend

So what’s going on in the town square on a very cold Saturday afternoon in November?

It’s the first Advent Weekend. Traditionally in Sweden we have a special Advent candle holder with four candles, lighting one for each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. The churches in our town unite in upholding this tradition by also lighting giant candles in the town square on each preceding Saturday afternoon, with a choir singing some of the traditional Advent hymns.

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This year we had an unusually cold start to Advent. They actually had difficulties lighting the candles because it was too cold!

It was also very cold to just stand still and listen, so I took the camera as an excuse to wander around a bit and get pictures from different perspectives.

The lights are up in the giant Christmas tree as well.

SantaLand is  also back, with Lapp cot tent and fires and whatnot.

You can also have a peek into Santa’s workshop. Santa himself seems to be either exhausted already, or just taking things easy, with five weeks to go to Christmas… He’s fast asleep in the window!

(I should really have put the camera on video for this because his tummy is  actually moving up and down…!)

PS. I bought myself an early Christmas present: An electric blanket to keep me warm in front of the TV in the winter afternoons and evenings…

Getting Ready…

 

It’s the 1st Advent Sunday this weekend.
The town is getting prepared, and so am I. At least trying to.

It was snowing Monday through Thursday this week, and then the temperature dropped even more to around -8°C (17°F). Forecasts say it’s going to remain cold. This means really early winter for south-west Sweden. Most of the years I’ve lived in this town (25 in January) we have not had snow for Christmas. Last year snow came to stay around Mid December. This year the first snowfall was 22 October, and it’s been more or less continuously frosty/snowy since early November. It’s going to be a very long winter! I’m not a fan of long winters. But there’s really nothing I can do to escape. Even the indoors temperature is lower than it was last winter. I feel like I suddenly have to bundle up like the Michelin man even indoors.

Advent In August

You may have heard of “Christmas in July” (celebrated sometimes in the southern hemisphere, where July is the coldest month), but what about Advent in August?

I usually buy Hippeastrum (Amaryllis) plants or bulbs for Advent and Christmas, but throw the bulbs out after the holidays when the flowers are gone and the leaves start looking sad. I’ve tried some time in the past to get them to flower again but never succeeded.

Mum however used to keep hers sometimes. After she died last spring, most of the plants in the house died, since dad never remembered to water them, and the home care staff did not make that a priority either. I gradually replaced most of the living plants with fake ones just to keep up an illusion of greenery. (Since I was not there often enough to water them, either.)

Two Hippeastrum bulbs somehow managed to keep themselves alive, though. I’ve been on the verge of throwing them out, several times… But have ended up leaving them.

Apparently being watered only once a month or so over the past year has suited them just fine!

When I was at the house about 1½ week after dad had gone into hospital in July, both the bulbs had fresh green leaves.

Another 1½ week later when my aunt and uncle and I stopped by, one of the bulbs had a flower bud coming! So I took that one home with me.

Now every time I enter my kitchen, it looks like Christmas. And odd feeling, since it is summer outside! 

 

Fire and Ice

Yesterday (Saturday) I did get myself into town to have a look at the Christmas Market. It was a good day for it since for a change the temperature was just below zero and it was not raining  - we even had a bit of sun for a while!

The snow in the picture above though was especially made or imported for Santaland - it has not been snowing in this part of the country! And the same goes for the ice block used to make an ice sculpture:

The sculpture was supposed to be a polar bear. The job was going to take several more hours to finish though, and I didn't have the stamina to hang around all that long! Today the temperature is above zero again with some rain - so it remains to be seen how long the sculpture will last...

13 December - St Lucia Day

13th December in Sweden is Lucia Day, or St Lucy's Day (link to Wikipedia article). As with so many other celebrations, the origin is a strange mix of quite different legends and traditions.

On the one hand, the celebration is connected to old beliefs that on the night between 12th till 13th one should guard oneself against Lucifer (the devil), or a female evil spirit or witch by name of Lussi, by staying up all night and keeping candles burning etc. (In old times this night was believed to be the winter solstice, the longest night in the whole year.)

On the other hand, it has also been connected to the Italian legends of St Lucy, patron saint of Syracuse who died in the 4th century.

Anyway, the tradition arose of young people going round between houses and farms on this night, singing special Lucia songs (and Christmas carols and hymns), and bringing candles and sweets and pastries. Lucia traditionally wears a long white dress or robe, and a crown of candles on her head. Her maids just hold candles in their hands. Boys can take part too, also dressed in white robes and wearing white cones on their heads decorated with stars and sometimes also holding a stick with a star on top. They're then called "star boys". (Nowadays boys might also be dressed up as Santa's helpers or gingerbread men.)


 
A special kind of sweet buns or rolls are made for Lucia; often they are made with saffron, and because of their special curled shape, they are called "Lucia cats". Ginger biscuits also belong in the Lucia and Christmas traditions.

Every town has their own Lucia, usually elected by a public voting process involving the local newspaper and a charity organisation. This Lucia and her maids spend around three weeks in December going round visiting different organisations and public places, singing traditional songs and collecting money for charity. Each school and church etc usually also have their own Lucia celebrations.  Young children sometimes go round and sing to the neighbours. Older students sometimes stay up all night, or get up very early to go and wake up parents or teachers etc.

One of my best Lucia night memories is from when I was in a youth gospel choir in my early 20s. A few of us started out in the very early morning, all dressed up, and then went round to collect the rest. Many of them were still living at home with their parents, so then we'd wake the whole family and sing a few songs at each place. Then we brought the choir members with us and so with each visit there were more of us. The last people visited were our choir leaders, pastors and the janitors at the church.

The picture at the top of the post was taken at a mini Lucia concert outdoors in the park close to where I live, a little over a week ago. At five o'clock in the afternoon, it is already completely dark. It was only possible to take photos when they were on stage in the light.

Here is a clip I found on Youtube, so that you get one of the traditional songs as well:

Not Quite as Planned

If you would like to get a feeling of what 1st Advent Sunday should be like, go to the previous post: A Swedish Advent Hymn. If you want to know what it was actually like for me, this year, stay here.

That I would not be going to church to sing Advent hymns, that much I knew beforehand. The closest I got to a church was that on the way to my dad's house, we (my brother and I) went up to the churchyard  in that village to have a look at the headstone on our mum's grave, which was put up after we were there last. When we got there we were at first greatly surprised to find the car park full and cars parked alongside the road too, because we had by then completely forgotten that it was Sunday at all, and 1st Advent Sunday on top of that...! This because before going to the churchyard we had also been to a store in town to get various technical and plumbing emergency things related to unpleasant discoveries my brother had made at the house when arriving there Saturday afternoon. Namely that there was 3 cm of sewage water on the floor in the old laundry room in the cellar and problems with one of the toilets upstairs...

My major contribution at dad's house was bringing food on the table (most of it I had prepared beforehand) and washing the dishes afterwards, and going through a pile of bills etc. I also managed to find the electric Advent candle holder and a place for it where dad can actually see it. That is actually just about what I can manage in one day (with chronic pain problems in neck-shoulder-arm.)

My brother had a much tougher afternoon trying to fix the flood situation. It turned out it was too big a problem to be solved by the small pump we had bought for the purpose. Pofessional help would have to be called in the next day (today). This however still involved trying to make the flooded room accessible for the professional people. Which meant my brother still had to spend the whole afternoon (several hours) in the cellar, clearing that room from old garden furniture and two sacks full of other various moldy rubbish. One huge problem that we are facing is that our parents rarely threw away anything, ever - Dad's philosophy always having been that as soon as you get rid of something, the next day you'll find yourself in need of that very thing; so he always preferred to be on the safe side...

When I got home in the evening, it was without knowing if my brother would be able to sort the emergency situation out before he had to go back home at noon today (he lives 300 km away). There is also a list of other unsolved big problems of various emergency degree, one or two which my brother had meant to take care of this weekend before he knew about the even more important emergency. Just the mere awareness of the list gave me a literally sleepless night last night. My own computer situation has not even made it to the list yet! (In case anyone missed it, my desktop computer died a couple of weeks ago and the laptop is not very well either.)

However, at noon today my brother called to say the plumbers had been there with their machinery and cleared the pipes and dealt with the flood etc. So a huge sigh of relief, even though a number of other problems still remain.

We have a saying in Swedish that would translate something like "fortune in the midst of bad luck". (I can't think of an exact English equivalent - if someone can, please share.) I guess that's how we have to think of it. Had my brother not come here this weekend, the situation could have got much worse before anyone noticed, because normally now no one else ever goes down into the cellar...

 

A Swedish Advent Hymn

Traditionally, 1st Advent Sunday in Sweden draws more people to church than any other Sunday in the whole year. There are certain hymns which are almost only sung in the month of December, and most of them are of the "grand" kind, like this one:



The lyrics are from the Gospel of Matthew 21:9 - the song the people of Jerusalem sang when Jesus rode into town on a donkey:

Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!

Hosanna is a Hebrew expression meaning "Save!" which became an exclamation of praise.
(Comment in the New International Version of the Bible.)

Advent Candles

Tomorrow is the first of the four Advent Sundays leading up to Christmas. So this weekend we light the first of the four candles in the special advent candle holder. These too come in different shapes. In Sweden though, all four candles are traditionally placed in a row; while in some other countries, like Germany, I know that the typical advent candle holder is instead in the shape of a wreath.

The one above is mine, a rather modern one, bought only a few years ago. I took the picture yesterday evening in my living room. I'm afraid it turned out a bit blurry, but never mind. 

The advent candle holder below is an older and more traditional one that my parents always used. This kind is shaped like a box, with a handle on each side, and traditionally you fill it with white moss, and some other decorations on top of that if you wish.



Filling a candle holder with moss etc is a bit of a fire hazard though, and that is why I in later years have abandoned that tradition. (Although of course the shops nowadays sell specially prepared moss that is not supposed to burn; but then it is drenched with chemicals instead.)  As you can see in the first picture I have some decorations on my holder too, but as the candles burn lower, I remove those.

As you light the first candle the first week, then the second the next week, then the third, then the fourth... When you get to the 4th Sunday, the candles will be in the shape of a "stair", the first candle by then very short and the last one still high. You don't really see that in the picture of my parents' candle holder, because after the 4th Sunday, they used to make a fuss of getting the candles even again. Which means, of course, blowing out the first one, until the next one has got down to the same size as that one, and then blow out the second one and wait for the third etc... I never understood why they bothered, and I never do that. One thing I can't stand however is if the first candle is burned down, and someone just puts in a new tall one in its place. Looks all wrong to me! At first chance, I'd be there to rearrange them! - LOL - We all have our own hang-ups!

Tomorrow, my brother and I will try and see if we can find the "advent stuff" in some closet in dad's house and arrange a bit of time-of-the-year atmosphere there, too. This used to be mum's job, so it will no doubt be a strange feeling...

Preparations Are Proceeding...

Preparations for 1st Advent Sunday are proceeding.
Today they were putting up the lights in the Christmas tree in the Market Square.



The Christmas Market stalls are also in place.
These days, commerce is going on around the week. In my childhood and youth, no shops were open on Sundays. 1st Advent Sunday used to be "Window Shopping Day". The shops were closed, but they had all made their Christmas displays. People went into town just to look although nothing was open. (Writing down memories like that always makes me feel about a hundred years old!)



(Some) Christmas Cards are cheap, but the postage is not!
I ordered mine via the internet yesterday, to be printed from one of my own photos.




My kitchen window.
A lot of people change curtains for the Christmas season, especially in the kitchen. Red brings warmth and colour into the cold and colourless darkness of winter. I prefer mine to be with relatively neutral pattern as I often keep them up until the end of February.

In almost every window in December and until a week or two into January, you will also see the electric candles and/or an advent star. Nowadays they come in all sizes, shapes and colours. The orange star made of paper to me is the "classical" one - the kind we had in my home when I grew up. It gives a soft warm glow and it's the kind I still want in my kitchen window. Some people prefer more expensive stars made of wood, or straw, or metal, or whatever. There is no lack of alternatives, whether you want traditional or more modern varieties.