I think I should get some stupidity award for setting one answer in my quiz completely wrong myself. 😛 Yes, everyone who answered that I’d want to retire to Italy can pat themselves on the back, that was the right answer.

My computer re-installation is ready. 😀 I can finally enjoy my extra HD space and faster processor. And all the software works and I don’t think I lost anything in the process. Fingers crossed eh.

I’ve got a very busy holiday week in front of me it seems. Lots of shopping to be done. 😀 I was determined to have one day for just reading on the sofa next to the Christmas tree, I’ve been wanting to do that since forever… I think it will have to wait until the week before Christmas however. And of course there’s all the cleaning to be done. And playing with my ‘new’ computer. And I was supposed to fit in lots of shoots since I’m on holiday. Argh. There’s just not enough time in the world….

On Friday we’re cruising off to Stockholm again to celebrate Stu’s birthday. We have a nice cabin again with a double bed and a minibar and a TV. So that should be good. And relaxing. And I get to dress up for the evening without having to go anywhere near snow. Yay.

Christmas traditions

Someone was asking about different Christmas traditions and whilst I wrote it down I thought I might as well share here.

We celebrate Christmas on the Eve on 24th of December. In the morning you wake up and have rice porridge with cinnamon and sugar. There also should be an almond in the porridge and whom ever gets it (depending on the tradition) gets a wish or gets to sing or something. My christmas wouldn’t be christmas without christmassy children’s TV in the morning. 😛 Usually this is the time to do last minute cleaning and putting up the tree etc. but I’ve always wanted the tree earlier and have everything sorted by then, so I can just be in my pyjamas in front of the TV and watch ‘Santas hotline’. It’s the coolest thing ever, where children get to phone Santa on live TV and ask when he’s coming and sing him songs etc. Their enthusiasm is just so cute. 😀

At midday the ‘Christmas peace’ is announced by the mayor or Turku. After this there should be no cleaning and the ‘celebrating’ can begin. When it gets dark (around 3 :|) people go to the graveyards and place candles on their relatives graves. Graveyards look gorgeous at christmas time. When you get home it’s time for Christmas sauna. :nod: After that the eating begins… Christmas dinner takes for ages, with all sort of weird finnish christmas foods + ham.

In the evening Father Christmas comes (usually some relative dressed as him, mind) to dish out the presents if there are children. We just pass them from beneath the tree as there are no children at the moment. And after the pressies you get to eat a lot of chocolate and drink baileys etc. :drool:

Here’s a nice christmassy link.

These days my christmas is a bit different, because of Stu. So we usually tend to celebrate finnish christmas on the eve and then more english type with english foods on the christmas day. If we ever get kids they will be very confused. 😐 But get pressies two days in a row. 😀