Another Day in Sweden

On December 13th every year Swedes celebrate Saint Lucia Day.  You can find celebrations and the Saint Lucia processions everywhere.  Scott and I caught one at the Carolina Rediviva (the university's main library). Here's a little clip of the procession.  You can read more about Saint Lucia Day here .  We were lucky to see one with real candles, as I understand many have moved over to battery powered candles. Near Fyris River, in the center of town, the snow seemed to bring with it the Christmas spirit. The already cute house next to our place was looking even cuter with snow.  Wandering cats make it even cuter. The duck's pond began to shrink.    All throughout town you can see how this time of year is special.  Gentle lighting was everywhere! It was great fun to see how stores get into the holiday spirit here.  It's not the big flashy American kind of Christmas with all the bright lights and Santas everywhere.  Rather, it's subdue...

  December was not an easy month for us.  Dark days of winter, and I mean dark!  On the winter solstice the sun rose at 8:50 am and set at 2:44 pm.  So, we tried to make the most of it by getting out.  Here we are enjoying some "Christmas" carols in Uppsala. We found ourselves walking in the woods near our house, sad there was no snow on the ground, but thinking about how wonderful this lit ski trail would be once there was.  This picture was taken around sunset at 2:47 - it's hard to tell, but it was getting dark. Here is Sam imagining what the trail could be like on skis. Winter is jut not winter without a little bit of ice hockey.  Scott found the schedule for our local team, the Uppsala Almtuna .  He could not buy tickets online because of our stupid credit cards, so when he called about it, the arena manager comped us seats and told Scott to buy some hot dogs and hot chocolate instead.  We bought the latter and Sam a hat.  It was gr...

  Our original Christmas plans included a few days of downhill skiing at Åre ski resort .  I found a great deal that included a basic cabin and three days of skiing.  We were really excited because Sam had never skied in mountains like this before - she's our midwest skier. Here is the only picture of me on skis.  Soon after this tow rope, I fell hard and dislocated my good (right) shoulder.  This, after I ate it on the kiddie tow rope and dislocated my bad (left) shoulder.  I was able to pop my left one back in and replaced my skis for shorter ones and was feeling pretty good...until the fall. (Un)fortunately, no pictures were taken of my fall, but Scott and Sam kindly recreated the scene.  Scott is rather proud of his crouched over position to demonstrate the dislocated shoulder.  In all honesty, Scott was amazing when this all happened.  He went into full ski patrol mode.  When the Swedish ski patrol came, it was like they were a team...