Adrian got a bunch of Pokemon-themed gifts: a Pokemon game for Nintendo, a Pokemon t-shirt with one of those reversible sequin pictures, a Pokemon key ring, and a box with Pokemon cards. Also a mini Rubic’s cube, and a cactus.

When I was a child, the cake I always had for my birthday was a redcurrant merengue cake. We couldn’t find any redcurrants today, so this is a raspberry and blackberry merengue cake.

Back then, a birthday with just one cake was no birthday. My other cake was often an upside-down pineapple cake (without any artificial-looking canned cherries) or a kringel, which is a filled and braided bread. The internet seems to think it should be filled with cinnamon, but I remember raisins and chopped nuts and a chocolatey glaze.

Eggs, new potatoes and herring are givens for a Swedish midsummer. Devilled eggs are by far the most delicious, festive way to serve eggs, so we make them every year. New potatoes need no fancy preparations whatsoever to be delicious. Today we served them with a luxurious summer salad of avocados, asparagus, sugar snaps, pine nuts and strawberries.

We did end up painting some eggs after all.

The problem I have with traditions is that after a while it feels like I’ve already done it all. Eggs with stripes, eggs with dots, eggs with curlicues, eggs with large swirls of colour, eggs with designs of spring flowers and chickens… Done them all so many times that it feels boring to do them again.

This year instead of Easter eggs I made a Valentine’s egg, a Halloween egg, a Christmas egg and a New Year’s egg.

“Tasteful and stylish” is not the aim when putting together an Easter witch outfit.

Myself and my mum, cooking a New Year’s Eve dinner. Ingrid took the photo.

Bruschetta with smashed avocados and cherry tomatoes; spinach and ricotta cannelloni with tomato sauce and bechamel sauce; chocolate and blood orange semifreddo.

I enjoy Christmas less and less as the years go by. You say tradition, I say routine. Almost all of Christmas is “should” rather than “want”.

One of the things about Christmas that I do enjoy is cooking and serving semi-fancy dinners. Linen tablecloth, candles, three-course meals with fancy desserts.

Finished wrapping all the Christmas gifts.

Some late night Christmas shopping at MoS. A surprisingly pleasant and stressless shopping experience: the mall is open until 10 pm, and was quite empty late at night. No crowds, no queues. And pretty Christmas light decorations everywhere.

(PS: I ran into a neighbour on Christmas eve and he told me that even then, the shopping streets in central Stockholm were far from crowded. Which is quite different from my experience from previous years. I wasn’t aware that online shopping has made that much of a difference.)

The annual Making of Lussebullar.

Eric enjoys making and kneading the dough.

Ingrid enjoys tasting the dough…

… and making plaited buns.

Adrian got the knack this year of rolling the dough “worms” that you need for making the traditional lussebulle shapes.

Plenty of buns were produced. Since we’re making them quite close to Christmas this year, and generally eating less sweet stuff than we used to, there’s no risk we’ll run out early.