God jul!

Will Santa also come to our small little apartment? Of course he will.

Yesterday, Johannes built a snow-man with the fresh snow. When we walk around, he wants to stop at every little patch of ice. I have this awkward feeling he likes the temperatures and the snow more than we do.

It is cold outside and the strong wind sends chills down our spines. I have this idea that we could go out to the Jul inblåsning, an orchestra playing at the folkparken. However, it wasn’t the best idea to walk there, and Kathi has no clue that it was going to be about 45 minutes to get there (actually that’s probably almost the longest walking distance across Lund). So she is a little bit upset. I also am slightly upset when we got there late and they would not let anyone in anymore. Too bad (but it could have been the case that we wouldn’t have been admitted to the building without the digital covid certificate). Some swedes are standing outside the building and watching the live stream on their smartphones.

We head back into the city center and go to a café to warm up. I order a hot chocolate in Swedish, but I’m completely baffled when she asks me something back in Swedish. Jag förstår inte. Ah yes, some cream on my chocolate, tack. Everyone is chilled and Kathi and I enjoy our Chai lattes. Three people enter the café, all wearing FFP2 masks. They are the only one with masks. Turns out: They are german tourists. Go figure.

The weather is fine and sky is blue. The sun casts a golden light around the city as we walk around the place. Kathi and Johannes enter the cathedral (where it’s warm) and come out again with a bag that someone gave to Johannes for jul. It contains stuff for handicraft and sweets (nicely packaged in a box labeled “What’s actually important in life?” in Swedish). So nice!

In the afternoon we have our Christmas feast (I think Kathi will report on which kind of meals you can cook in such a small kitchen with limited resources). We put up the Christmas lights we took with us, and go out to mess a bit with the snow. As we come back, Santa had brought us some presents. Yay! Johannes gets the clothes he wished for, several books and two CDs. Some stuff Santa seemed to have forgotten though. Still, he is happy.

We send out greetings and wishes to our friends and get some back. It’s been a different Christmas day than most others, of course, but we still had a great time. White Christmas, even!

Have yourself a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!