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!

Quotation of the Week (28/2010)

“Gracious acceptance is an art which most of us never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving.”

Alexander McCall Smith
(Love Over Scotland)

The couple in the picture are complete strangers to me. I took the photo at the celebration of our National Day in June. This couple standing right next to me started dancing although no one else was doing it. The shot is straight from the camera, no cropping or editing. They saw me taking the photo, but just smiled…

Never-Ending Stories

A few weeks ago, I reported that our Town council had decided to give away (and yet keep) the [in]famous sculpture Cloned Frogs on Gala Dress, as a wedding gift to our Crown Princess Victoria and her husband-and-Prince-to-be Daniel. (The wedding takes place this Saturday.)

This story seems to just go on and on... Today the newpaper reports that the artist (you know who) decided to make a miniature, and donate that to our Town, in order for the Town to actually pass that one on to the royal couple.

Actually, for a miniature it's rather big. The Town representative who is supposed to take it to Stockholm and give it away was a little taken aback when it arrived. He seems to have been thinking he would be able to just put it in a bag...

Picture scanned from the newspaper.

What the paper does not comment on is the fact (to me rather obvious!) that this "mini" is not at all an exact copy of the bigger statue.  Take a minute to compare:

Do you see what I mean? Look at the waistlines. The new one seems to be made to "grow" in... 

I hope for the royal family's sake that they will be able to find some obscure nook of the castle to put this in, where they don't actually have to look at it every day. I would also really like to know (or on second thought - perhaps I wouldn't!) how the minds of our local politicians work. As for the artist, well... I still suspect that he is his own biggest fan, and loving all the publicity.

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We have another sculpture in town that has been here for a few years now: Bodhi. I think on the whole he is rather popular. He has however also become a popular target for student pranks. Because he is not really easy to get to - standing in the river as he is - I guess it has become somewhat of a challenge...

Last year, someone put a wreath of flowers on his head:

This year, he was decorated with a graduation hat:

Photo from the newspaper

Last year, that wreath remained on his head for weeks. But this year - with sculpture festival and all going on - he was not allowed to keep the hat... I only saw the hat in the paper, so I borrowed their photo.

To Give Or Not To Give Away

On 19th June, Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria is getting married to her “man of the people” Daniel Westling. The Crown Princess is also Duchess of Västergötland (which happens to be the province where I live), and after the marriage, her husband will be given the title Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland.

The media have been having glorious days ever since the announcement of the engagement in February 2009.

Lately, there has been some discussion about the choice of wedding ceremony. Unlike the British/American tradition, the common practice in Sweden (going back a long way) is that bride and groom walk into the church together as equals. In this case, the Swedish royal family is insisting that King Carl XVI Gustaf lead his daughter to the altar and hand her over to her husband.

The criticism from the Church as well as many others can be summed up in these words which I found in a web article:

Precisely because this wedding will be watched by millions of viewers, choosing a ceremony that reduces the woman to the role of a commodity being transferred from one owner to another is not a private matter. And precisely because it is a public affair and because we’re talking about the marriage of a crown princess aged over 30, a woman who is one day to assume the responsibilities of head of state, it doesn’t look good if she can’t walk into the church on her own.

Basically I agree but I can’t say I really care enough to make a big deal out of it. (Or did I just do that?)

Our local newspaper today again almost had me choking over my morning cup of tea:

Another matter the media has delighted in reporting and discussing is the tradition of municipalities and provinces giving wedding gifts to the royal couple; and what should be considered an appropriate gift.

Some municipalities choose not to give anything at all. They think the royal family is rich enough to buy their own bed linen or whatever. (They’re probably right about that.) Some try to find a gift connected to their own local industry (getting some advertising benefit out of it). Some I think have chosen to go with a symbolic gift to some charity project.

Guess what our town just decided? To give them a wedding gift, but keep it! Moreover, to give them something we already bought before we decided to use it as wedding gift. It can hardly even be said to be new any more, since it has already been broken and repaired…

Yes. We are giving them the sculpture “Cloned Frogs on Gala Dress”… *

But it’s really just a gesture, since we’ll be keeping it here. (Exactly where, I don’t think has been decided upon yet!)

The chairman of the local government committee says to the paper that he thinks the fact that the sculpture is a dress may represent our textile industry profile. Well, I guess it might... But then he adds:

“Besides, we all know what happens if you kiss a frog…”

 

In Swedish, our word for “frog” (groda) is also used to denote a verbal slip or blunder…

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*The Never-Ending Story about the sculpture Cloned Frogs on Gala Dress:

A Dog May Look At A Frog (15 May)
Biting the Grass (15 May)
Frogs Going AWOL (17 May)
Don’t Climb What You Can’t See (18 May)
Updates (19 May)
Sweetlove and Cloning (20 May)
Wholly Uncovered (22 May)

Quotation of the Week (4/2010)

If instead of a gem, or even a flower,
we should cast the gift of a loving thought
into the heart of a friend,
that would be
giving as the angels give.

George MacDonald

(1824 - 1905)

Tulips

Yesterday I got flowers delivered to my door. By that I mean a surprise delivery by a messenger; not brought by someone coming to visit. This is something that happens very rarely in my life, probably not even once in a decade...

It was a lovely boquet of red tulips, from the friend to whom I sent the CDs last week.

Tulips are a reminder of spring, so they inspired me to take down the last of the Advent-Christmas decorations today (the electric candle-lights in the windows). The outdoor lights on the balcony railing however will stay until some snowfree and dry day. Which probably means they will be left in peace for some time yet. We've had more snow falling over the past couple of days.

For Goodness Sake

I didn't go into town yesterday because it rained. So I missed out on the grand opening of Santaland in the Market Square. Never mind - I could read all about it in my morning newspaper anyway... As  I mentioned in my Tuesday post, in later decades our traditions have become more and more influenced by the American ones; so this is the kind of Santaland where you come and sit on Santa's lap and give him your wishlist. (In the old days, in this country, you had to send your list by mail; Santa did not go anywhere until Christmas Eve!)

There was an interview in the paper with a young man who apparently enjoyed this privilege, 5½ years old. Unfortunately he had left his list at home, but he remembered what was on it anyway. The most interesting part of the interview to me was this: 

He adds that he well deserves his Christmas gifts.
'I've been good all year,' he says in a serious voice.

Let's just hope his parents can actually afford the new computer and games that were on the wishlist...


The picture of the reindeer was taken on another day recently, in a supermarket.