Jul i Äspö

Äspö was a flurry of activity on Christmas Eve day. The snow must have been about 18 inches (45cm) deep in some places, not including the large drifts created by the wind.

The kids found an enormous icicle. Don't try this at home!

It seems like we ate all day long...ribs, meatballs, smoked eel, sillsallad (herring salad), Jansson's (potato gratin with anchovies), pickled herring, etc.

Of course, for the kids, the highlight of the evening was the arrival of Jultomten (the Swedish Santa Claus) who, among many other things from far and wide, brought an ice hockey game. 

 

Findus wasn't so interested in the gifts. He preferred running up and down the stairs chomping at the hanging plants.

Unfortunately, it rained all night on Christmas Eve and when we woke up, all that was left of the snowman was his clothes.

 

We slept long and Erik went straight from bed to the kitchen. Christmas Day was turkey day. For Americans, it's absolutely normal to stuff a turkey, especially at Thanksgiving, but this was Äspö's first whole turkey adventure. It was fabulous. Erik and his mother stuffed it with liver, brandy, spices, walnuts and hazelnuts freshly arrived from Oregon.

Later we baked Norwegian Christmas cookies (with spelt flour, of course) - Pepperkake and Berliner kranse. Naturally, we drank glögg with the cookies! Yum, yum!

God Jul!

God Jul, Frohe Weihnachten and Merry Christmas to all!!

Snowed in

And this is what we woke up to this morning!

 

It has been snowing here in Äspö for most of the last three days. Astrid's attempt to get to work today was thwarted by roads that were simply not visible and when they were, there was enough ice under the snow to make it too slippery to drive.

We must have at least 20 inches of snow. We're really missing our cross country skis which are snugly packed in our leaky cellar in Cologne.

Yesterday it was still possible to get around. The garden looked like a fairy-tale forest.

 

Lena and I had a pretty good snow fight which ended with me in the snow. Thankfully, it's pretty dry, so it brushes off.

There's a pretty good stock of firewood in the various outbuildings.

Our job was to bring it in.

Let it snow!

As I write this, we are happily sitting in front of the fire at the old farmhouse of Erik's mother and older sister in Äspö, which is almost at the southernmost tip of Sweden. As our plane got closer and closer to the Copenhagen airport yesterday morning, it became clear that the whole area was covered in snow. What a nice surprise - a gorgeous sight and such a contrast from our desert existence of the past few months!

In fact, there's something about snow and southern Sweden. The farmhouse family was actually snowed in yesterday. There's enough wind that the snow drifts within a very short period of time and makes it pretty difficult to dig out even when it doesn't look like there's much snow on the fields. Luckily, Erik's younger sister and family live in Malmö (just across the bridge from Copenhagen), so we stayed there last night.

The below zero cold was quite a shock, and since I had sent our winter clothes ahead to Äspö directly from Germany last month, we were absolutely not dressed properly. Don't forget that the difference between midday temperatures in Doha and southern Sweden is about 40 degrees Celsius at the moment! Brrrrrrrrr!!

We had a cozy day which involved putting up the Christmas tree and cuddling up under a blanket while watching the snow fall outside.

The latest addition to the family, Findus, seemed to quite enjoy the snow...

while foster-mother Shannon preferred to keep nice and warm inside.

Erik and Lars decided to brave it and went off to the sauna where Erik found he could take the heat longer than usual. It was the dip in 2-degree-Celsius water that was a little hard to take.

We had a nice evening snack which involved lots of antipasti. Pork!!! We haven't seen that for a while. Later on there was even glögg and pepparkakor! Yummy!

It's such a relief to be out of Qatar for a few weeks. Of course, we're telling our crazy stories over and over. They sound so ridiculous and yet they are oh so true.

Above all, we are enjoying our family, great food, nice wine, oxygen, relaxed driving conditions and SNOW!!!