Yesterday, after the daily post, I discovered that my ExpressCard card reader has stopped working, probably as a result of upgrading to OSX Snow Leopard. Annoying: I had to use my old SD card reader, which glacially slow, to download photos from the camera. Sent a support request to Belkin; hopefully there is a fix.

Adrian spent a lot of time fussing and whining again. Going out for a walk with the pushchair seems to be the best cure.

We took down the last Christmas decorations. I baked a pie for dinner, with Ingrid helping me make the dough.

Ingrid then went on to make “soup” out of water and flour. And she seemed to like the taste of it, for real. Then she asked me what else she could add. Salt and ketchup were added, and then she thought some physalis would fit nicely.

When I was looking for party game ideas for Ingrid’s fourth birthday, one of the pages I stumbled upon said, roughly, that a kids’ birthday party is a success if the child feels special, and none of the guests break down crying. I.e. don’t make it too hard for yourself. That struck me as very sensible advice, and I’ve adopted it for Christmas, too. It helps me keep away from the mummy trap, the one that makes mums struggle to make a perfect holiday for their families (especially the children) while they themselves have no time or energy to enjoy themselves.

So I kept my Christmas preparations relaxed and included nothing elaborate, nothing that felt like too much work. No gingerbread house, for example, and not much in the way of Christmas decorations (apart from the tree). A very simple Advent calendar for Ingrid. Gifts that (hopefully) were appreciated but not stunning, perfect, best-ever, because that’s what I could manage.

The best part of this Christmas holiday for me was having my mum here. She and Ingrid like playing with each other. So with 3 adults for 2 kids (my brother was here too but he’s not the kind who plays with children) we could keep all the kids happily occupied and still have one pair of hands free for preparing meals etc. I’ve been enjoying myself cooking semi-fancy meals, (a) because I could concentrate and know that I won’t be interrupted in the middle of an important step, and (b) because someone would have time to enjoy eating them. Even two desserts!

Today is Advent Sunday, which marks the beginning of Advent. Advent has mostly lost its original religious meaning here in Sweden and is, effectively, “the time of waiting for Christmas”.

Thus, Advent Sunday and the first weekend of Advent is the time for hanging up Christmas decorations and lights. At home, that is: shops and businesses have had theirs up for weeks already (since they cleared out all the Halloween stuff). After weeks of creeping, gradually increasing darkness, there is just a little bit more light out there. I love the way our neighbourhood looks, with sparkles of light in just about every window.

We have our two advent stars that I bought last year, but not much more in the way of decorations. I don’t like visual noise, our living room feels cluttered already, and traditions are not very important to me. But I think Ingrid would enjoy having a bit more Christmas feeling at home. She’s been pointing out every single Christmas tree, Santa and fake snowman we’ve passed. I guess I will try to figure out some way to introduce some more Christmas cheer here. If not in time for this Christmas, then definitely for next time.

I did, at least, manage an Advent calendar for Ingrid. Nothing fancy, since I didn’t start planning in time – just a 24-piece puzzle in 24 red envelopes.

We had our work Christmas dinner yesterday, at a nice old manor house, with everyone’s partners and everything. It was interesting (but not exactly surprising) to see that the colleagues who I enjoy talking to, also had partners I enjoyed talking to, and the colleagues I’d never felt a connection with had partners I couldn’t connect to either.

I think we (Eric and I) managed to prove to everyone that we are incurably odd, since we decided to walk home from the party, even though it’s about a half-hour walk and it was raining a bit. But after 3 hours of sitting and stuffing ourselves we really felt a need for some fresh air and exercise. The Swedish smorgasbord-style Christmas dinners almost seem to be designed to make everyone eat too much.

Ingrid was at home watching Teletubbies with my mum. Her last time with a babysitter was almost a year ago, and we were a bit unsure about how it would go. In the end it went as smoothly as anyone could wish. She didn’t even ask for us, not even when it was time to go to bed. I warned her in advance that grandma would come for a visit and mummy would go out and Ingrid would stay at home. The first time, a few days before, she didn’t like the idea much at all: big teary eyes and trembling lower lip. The second time, the day before, she looked a bit cross and said she wanted to come with me. The closer we got, the less she cared, and by the time I was about to leave she didn’t even care enough to come to the window to wave me good-bye. So to all those who claim that children need to be left early on with babysitters in order to train them, and that all this co-sleeping and babywearing and liberal cuddling will cause trouble later, I just say “hah!”.

We had our Christmas lunch at work today. Here’s what the rest of the team ate:

It’s interesting. After 15 years as a vegetarian I couldn’t even see that pig as food. It didn’t look edible or smell edible at all. Not disgusting either, just not food.

It’s strange. You take Christmas pudding, which on its own is overwhelmingly sticky-sweet. And you take brandy cream, which on its own is overwhelmingly sticky-sweet. And you put the two together, and the result actually tastes quite good. How did that happen?

This is, I think, our most low-key Christmas ever. We have the important ingredients: a tree, masses of gingerbread cookies, and julmust. But celebrations have been small and spread out. Most years we’ve celebrated either with my mother (who also lived in England for about 5 years) or Eric’s family in Stockholm. This year my mother is back in Sweden, and we thought Ingrid was a bit too young for long-distance travel, so we’re on our own and hadn’t planned anything particular for Christmas at all. Not even a Christmas dinner: a large part of our evenings is occupied by getting Ingrid ready for the night, which makes it hard to fit in any major dinner preparations. My father visited us a week before Christmas, so with careful organising we managed to have a Christmas-style dinner then (roast veg, a veggie loaf and homemade cranberry sauce – yum). I enjoyed cooking it – the first time in about 2 months that I cooked a proper meal – but that required a fair amount of planning, and right now I’d rather relax than undertake a project like that.

For Christmas Eve we were invited by a couple of friends to a Glöggfest in Brockenhurst outside of Southampton. Brockenhurst is 2 hours by train from London, which made it by far our longest trip yet with Ingrid. We’ve only been to Central London a couple of times. The trip there went well – she slept well in the sling, and ate well, even though she seemed to be quite distracted by the landscape rushing past.

The moment we set foot inside our friends’ house, Ingrid started screaming. Not crying, but screaming as if she was in terrible distress. She really, REALLY, didn’t want to be there. Since she got upset so immediately after we entered, we guessed it must have been the smell of incense in the house. And the only way to calm her was to take her outside… so Eric spent the first hour and a half standing outside in the front garden, with Ingrid asleep in the sling.

When Ingrid had woken and eaten, and the incense smoke had dispersed, she was content and social for half an hour, even smiling at the other guests! But then something went wrong again, and the screaming came back. This time she agreed to almost calm down in a quiet room far from everybody else, but even then she wasn’t happy. So we gave up and headed home pretty soon. She calmed down after only 10 minutes outside, and was perfectly happy on the train home. She was probably simply overwhelmed by the new sights and sounds and smells.

Conclusion: Ingrid doesn’t mind travelling, but is no more fond of noisy crowds than I am.

But the best part of this Christmas holiday has been having Eric at home for almost two weeks. I am so glad to not be alone all day, and immensely relieved to have someone to share the work of taking care of Ingrid. Eric’s been taking care of Ingrid’s long midday nap, which has given my back (and my patience) a very welcome break. Even though I’m not working, I get a Christmas vacation! I feel rested, and actually enjoy my time with Ingrid now.

This is what I was met by when I got home after two days’ absence: a huge, fragrant, twinkling Christmas tree. (It’s so huge that I can’t fit it all into one photo without going so far that the flash on my camera doesn’t light it up any more.)

The tree almost manages to look huge even in our apartment, even though the ceiling here is quite high. The crossbeams are at least 3m from the floor, and the ridge is about another 2m above that. The tree must be a good 4 metres high, and large enough that it doesn’t really stand up on its own and rests against one of the beams. I wonder how Eric got it home, or in through the door! (“On the bike,” he says.) Our string of Christmas lights looks almost puny on that tree. (We haven’t got the rest of the decorations up yet.)

The lights were our only Christmas decorations in our previous apartment, where the living room wasn’t really large enough for a proper tree. So we hung them on our fig.

We’ve had some trouble finding the right sort of trees here in London – they mostly sell firs of various sorts, whereas the traditional tree in Estonia and Sweden is a spruce (picea abies). I’ve got to admit that firs generally look lusher and greener; spruces tend to be thinner and sparser. And spruce needles are a lot sharper – although that only matters initially when you’re hanging up the decorations. However, some firs hardly have any smell at all – we happened to buy one of those the year before last (or maybe it was last year). The smell is an important part of a Christmas tree, and this year’s tree smells wonderful.

1. Invite friends to the kitchen.
2. Provide tools, ingredients and instructions.
3. Add glögg as needed, and stir vigourously.

We had our traditional (if 4 years can be called a tradition) Swedish “julstök” (Christmas bake) yesterday: cooking and baking in the company of friends. We now have enough gingerbread cookies, lussebullar (saffron buns), knäck (toffee), chocolate sweets and fudge to last us for a month at least.

All of it’s rather experimental, really. For the knäck, for example, we tried using treacle instead of golden syrup this year, and it didn’t work as well as expected… but the same treacle was good for gingerbread dough. This year’s gingerbread cookies came out better than ever, pleasantly spicy and dark.

Gingerbread cookies are my favourites, really, both to make and to eat. It’s fun to try and fit as many as possible onto the rolled-out dough, to waste as little as possible. And they taste good!

Fewer people came to join us than last year, and one large family had to decline at the last moment, so we’ve got a whole lot of glögg left over… well, that’ll save us the bother of carrying it home next year!