Christmas Mood

Hello, I’m from Sweden and my minion name is Celia311. I work at a library and my love of books is epic. I’m currently having a bit of a medical issue that makes reading difficult so I’ve switched over to audiobooks for the time being. One recently read book is: Under the Harrow by Flynn Berry, an excellent book that combines the psychological aspects of grief at the sudden, violent death of a loved one and the sleuthing that it leads to.

I love to do crafts, and it’s my job to do Christmas crafts with my niece and nephews, which I love. When my niece was six years old she came to the conclusion that since my mom loved to do crafts, and I love it, and she loves – then she must have gotten it from me, through my mom. I didn’t have the heart to explain genetics to her, my heart just about melted at her announcement.

This past Sunday was the first of advent which is a big thing here. This is the day that you should put up your “adventsljusstakar” in the windows and hopefully even a Christmas flower arrangement or two. This means that I spent the weekend doing Christmas cleaning and planting hyachinths in my flowerbox.

I also got started on preparations for the “Lussebak” which is a tradition here. A “lussekatt” is a saffron bun that all Swedes tend to overeat of during the Christmas season. To really draw out the saffron I put it in a couple of tablespoons of vodka, at least a week before it’s time to bake. What’s really great though, is to use really good rum and let it marinate for a couple of years before you use it in baking!

What’s going on craft-wise for me at the moment is to get started on the Luciatåg amigurumi. Lucia is a big thing here which is celebrated in all the schools, most assisted living homes have Lucia trains coming in to perform for their residents. It’s a beautiful and powerful sight when a large group of women holding candles, and young men with star hats, sing traditional Christmas hymns and songs.

I’ve also made snowflake earrings and light boxes this season and I’m thinking of making even more to sell. We’ll see how it goes. I’d at least like to make some more variations to give as small Christmas gifts.

Crochet is my thing, I’ve tried knitting but I’m not very good at it.

My grandmother taught me how to crochet when I was quite young but I never really did anything with it, except for the odd, traditional granny square, however, a few years ago a friend of mine was learning to crochet, and I picked up the hook again. Apparently, it is all muscle memory and I was hooked (pun totally intended).

With crochet, I’ve reached the point where I can see an image and try to re-create it myself. This is my winter hat that I made with inspiration from last years “Adventskalender” that was shown on TV (yes, every year since 1960 SVT makes a 24 part tv series of about 14 minutes each to count down to Christmas Eve, which is the day that we celebrate here in Sweden). The photo on the left is from the official SVT site.

My current unfinished project is a sweater for my nephew, he picked out the colors and now I just have to finish it in time for Christmas.

I also love working with reflective yarn – since it starts to get dark around 2:30 pm where I live it’s important to be able to be seen my motorists! My niece is modeling her brother’s hat, her hat is the bright pink one, her color of choice.

I did say that I’m not very good at knitting, but a colleague and I have started an exchange program of sorts, I help her with crochet and she’s helping me with knitting. It’s going to be a pair of socks, I tend to be terrible at keeping even tension when I’m knitting so we’ll see how it turns out…

I didn’t intend for my blog post to be a Christmas heavy post, but, since that is what is on my mind and in my heart lately it just happened. I wish you all a happy holiday, whichever way you celebrate!