Christmas party with the extended Bergheden family.

We have a New Year’s tradition of watching fireworks from the flat roof of the newer half of our house. Twenty minutes before midnight it’s time to bring out the big ladder and then we take turns to climb up to the roof.

The roof is wide and flat – there’s plenty of space to walk around to get good views in all directions, without ever having to worry about getting too close to the edge.

There’s always plenty of fireworks to look at, near and far. Usually quite a lot quite near, even.

For the first time ever, Ingrid opted to go celebrate New Year’s Eve with her friends. Growing up! So we had to wish her a happy new year by text.

My brother came for a Christmas visit.

We played board games (Robo Rally),

… made pasta together,

… and crafted mince pies.

Christmas Day may be behind us, but it’s still Christmas, and mince pies are a must-have.

Lazy day today.

This corner of the sofa, with the plush cushion and the woolly blanket, is both Ingrid’s and Adrian’s favourite. And Nysse’s as well, actually. Eric and I prefer the firmer parts of the sofa. Or really, in Eric’s case, the even firmer sofa in the other room.

But the blanket is the best. I got it as a birthday gift, and I’m glad I can say it’s mine, because this way Adrian can’t just steal it all the time.

Christmas presents. And Christmas food. Not many photos of things happening because I mostly forgot about my camera.

We used to put Christmas gifts out under the tree the night before, both for the festive feeling and for the kids to go and poke and shake and wonder who would be getting what. With a cat in the house, that is not an option. Shiny paper, dangly ribbons, chewable boxes? Temptations, temptations everywhere. Now we had the gifts hidden away until just before opening time, and when that arrived, we shut Nysse in the bedroom. Adrian was disappointed, but what can you do.

Devilled eggs are our go-to festive lunch food. This time we made them extra festive, with “holly” decorations made of pomegranate seeds and parsley leaves, based on an idea that Ingrid found on TikTok. Served with Eric’s vörtbröd, three kinds of pickled herring (blackcurrant; sesame and wasabi; sour cream and fish roe) and a beetroot salad.

Ingrid was the mind and hands behind the most decorative part of Christmas dinner as well – a Pavlova wreath. Three kinds of cheese with biscuits and marmalade for starters; Hasselback potatoes, black bean “meatballs”, cranberry sauce and brussel sprouts for the main course; Christmas pudding for those who like that kind of thing.

Twice during the cooking and food prep I was caught out by using what seemed like risk-free substitutes.

For the beetroot salad, I bought pre-cooked beets to save time, instead of boiling them at home. Chopped them up, mixed with all the other things and the sour cream dressing – and the salad came out white. For the record, beetroot salad is NOT supposed to be white but violently purple. I don’t know what they did with the pre-cooked beets – peeled them before cooking, maybe – but clearly they lost all their colour. Luckily we had a jar of pickled beets in the fridge, so I used those to top up the salad and give it some colour at least.

For the cranberry sauce, there were no fresh cranberries to be had anywhere, so I bought frozen ones. I suspect the fresh ones that used to be available around Christmastime may have been of the American variety (so maybe they weren’t even sold for Christmas but for Thanksgiving and then afterwards as long as stocks lasted), whereas the frozen ones are definitely of Swedish origin. And clearly they behave differently when cooked. The fresh ones were rich in pectin, so the sauce thickens after cooking and cooling. The frozen ones clearly aren’t, because the sauce remained as runny as anything and I had to thicken it with cornstarch. Tasted delicious, though.

Saffron buns of the lussebulle model have been a thing for the Christmas season in Sweden for as long as I can remember. Recently they’ve been joined by other kinds of saffron-flavoured baked goods. There are saffron muffins, saffron crescents, and saffron biscuits. This year I’m seeing saffron buns with almond paste at every bakery. Or maybe they’ve been around, and it’s just me who hasn’t noticed them? It’s a delicious combination, in any case.

I thought I’d try to buy more Christmas ornaments. Åhlens, big department store in the middle of Stockholm – surely they will have something.

They had matte, ugly plastic balls. They had ornaments shaped like packages of French fries.

Oh, look, felted bullfinches! Except when I got closer, they looked like diseased, dying bullfinches. Eyes on top of their heads like snails, eyes askew, eyes nearly falling off. Not exactly Christmas vibes. Photos don’t do their ugliness justice, even.

Red and green, wool, hand-made.

We have a Christmas tree – cat-proofed, even.

Christmas cards, ready to be sent off.

Postnord some kind of effort for the holiday season. They make a set of Christmas-themed stamps that cost a tiny bit less than the ordinary ones and are only valid until the 15th of December, and they put up special red post boxes for these.

Today I learned that Postnord and its predecessor Posten have been giving out Christmas stamps since 1980. The price difference vs normal stamps has varied over time, ranging from 5% in 1987 (2.00 kr vs 2.10 kr) to 25% in 1998 (4.00 kr vs 5.00 kr). Currently we’re near the historical minimum, at 7% (14 kr vs 15 kr).

It still annoys me every year that they have no equivalent for international mail. And that they can’t even bother to internationalize the stamps most often used for sending stuff abroad. Motifs with pictures of Swedish cultural artifacts? Sure, go for it. Labelling those in Swedish? Kind of stupid, in my eyes.