I read an article in a magazine recently about the history of advent stars, starting with the Moravian stars in Germany in the late 19th century and spreading into Sweden, among other places. The article quoted an ethnologist who commented on the current habit of hanging several such stars in one’s home and described it as a sign of wastefulness, wanting much of everything, and as an American ideal leaking in. As opposed to proper Swedish, Lutheran culture where thou shalt not have any fun, I guess.

Vårt välstånd gör oss mer slösaktiga, kanske vi kan säga. Just nu vill vi ha stjärnor och ljusstakar både inomhus, i trädgården och på balkongen. Det amerikanska idealet sipprar in. Vi befinner oss fortfarande i slöseriet och vill ha mycket av allt. Frågan är hur och om det kommer att förändras.

Perhaps the ethnologist lives in a lit-up inner city. Out here in the suburbs the evenings are dark. Heck, even the afternoons are dark, and sometimes there is not much light even in the middle of the day. (Stockholm has seen zero hours of sunlight thus far in December, which is not normal and not fun. This video (in Swedish) by SMHI will tell you more.) And we hang up advent stars and string lights and other kinds of Christmas lights to battle the darkness and bring some light into our lives. So that ethnologist can take her snobbish views and go get stuffed.

The advent calendar is up.

This year it is fully activity-based. I’ve gradually been moving in this direction over the last few years anyway: the kids need no toys or other stuff, not even socks or underwear. Not even pencils or little funny erasers or hair bands. And not even chocolates or raisins or other small snacks, because Ingrid already took matters in her own hands and bought chocolate calendars for both herself and Adrian. (An Oreo calendar for her, a Lindt milk chocolate calendar for him.) I think they’re close to outgrowing this thing, but Adrian was still looking forward to it, so here it is.

There is no point in trying to turn baking lussebullar or gingerbread cookies into a calendar activity – that kind of thing needs to be planned together with the whole family. The calendar activities are all small-scale and low-stakes. Take a Christmas photo of yourself. Discuss: what if superheroes had to do Santa’s job. Look at photos from past Christmases.

The little letters on the rolled-up activity cards help me keep track which one is which, in case some activity still ends up on an unsuitable day.

Today’s workout was 40 minutes with dumbbells in the company of Coach Kozak and Claudia over at HASfit.com which is now my go-to place for workout videos.

This is the last day of the tretton37 workout challenge. It’s worked wonders for me. I spent October in a funk and barely exercised at all towards the end of the month. Now I have settled into a stable workout routine that has me doing some kind of exercise every single day. I have more energy and feel better in many ways.

I’m glad we had the challenge, but I’m also glad it is over. The app for reporting the daily workouts was effectively a social media platform and came with all the costs and benefits of such things. Benefits of course include other peoples’ inspirational photos, comments and thumbs-ups. Among the costs: having to put up with other people’s photos fom gyms and padel halls. Apparently some of them still think it is OK to go to the gym or even meet up with colleagues for lunchtime padel sessions – and that this is even something to proudly show off. (For the record: gyms are explicitly mentioned as places to avoid in Stockholm’s local covid-19 restrictions, and Stockholm’s municipal gyms and swimming halls have all been closed. But there is no law that would allow the government to close down private businesses at this time so commercial gyms are still open.) Mind-boggling and really annoying. I’m glad to not have to see any more of that.

I’ll keep the habit but stop the daily posting both here and in the app.

Ingrid cooks dinner at least twice a week, to earn extra money that she saves for the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea in 2023. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, open for scouts from ages 14 to 17. And an expensive one. Ingrid has been planning and looking forward to it and saving up money for it since last summer. We even have an Excel chart where we follow up her savings and compare the total to a target line. She was going to try and get a summer job as well, but covid-19 put an end to those plans.

I had planned to cycle out for some more errands today. But the covid-19 related measures were just ramped up in Sweden, and all non-essential contacts with other people and non-essential visits to indoor places are strongly discouraged. So no more errands for me for now. Instead I simply cycled to Ursvik and back (via Rinkeby and Järvafältet).

Before corona I had very regular exercise habits. I booked my Friskis sessions well in advance, and never allowed myself to cancel a booking.

Working from home, I’ve struggled with keeping up physical exercise. I’ve had periods when I worked out regularly, without much of a struggle even. But I’ve also had periods when I became lax and let go a bit. And periods when I lost the habit completely.

The gradual decline always looked the same. “I don’t have time right now, I’ll do it later.” and then “I’ll take a rest day, I can work out tomorrow instead.”

This workout challenge has taught me what I need to keep up the habit. The trick is to work out every single day, so it happens on autopilot. Instead of rest days when I do nothing, I have rest days when I do some other kind of exercise. This way there is no room for hesitation about whether I really need to work out today of all days. The answer is known in advance with full certainty. Yes, I do.

Thinking is reduced to a minimum; the room for excuses and postponement is minimal.

The days are dark and gray. Heavy, thick clouds hang so low that there is little difference between morning, day and evening. Even in the middle of the day it is so dim that I have to turn on the lights inside, although I sit right next to a window.

I wish there was sunlight, at least. There isn’t much else to be happy about, or to look forward to.

I wish there was something to look forward to.

I’ve come out of October’s slump where I had no energy at all. I think I may have the exercise challenge to thank for much of that change.

Now that I have more energy, though, what do I do with it? Indoors I am restless. Outdoors all is mud and gray. I thought of going on another longer hike but there’s only 8 hours of daylight, what would I do with the other 16?

The plants in the window in my home office corner are outgrowing their space. I bought them for my large window niche at the tretton37 office, where they would have plenty of room. Now they’re squeezed onto a narrow window ledge. And since my home office is in the same room as our bedroom, we pull down the blinds every night, so the plants can’t be allowed to spread outside their narrow space. I’ve already had to move one to a different window because it grew too large. Others will soon need to follow. If not now, then in the spring, when the nights will be lighter and it will no longer be enough to pull down the blinds until they just touch the tops of the plants.

Not that their disappearance here would make much of a difference. I can barely see them behind the huge monitor that takes up much of my field of view.

The home office still feels like a semi-temporary solution. Or 25% temporary perhaps. OK for another year, but not for 10 years. I’d want to make more adjustments if this were to become permanent.

It’s hard to know how long to plan for. The coronavirus situation will resolve itself one way or another – vaccines are on their way, even if not within touching distance yet. But how much time will I be spending in an office after that?

I was on my feet all day – grocery shopping, other errands, cooking, more groceries, more cooking – but none of it counted for the challenge. So I went out for another late night walk. I spent most of the walk with my eyes glued to the phone screen, reading the news about Biden winning the presidential election, in happy disbelief. (Not disbelief that he won, but disbelief that the seemingly endless vote counting was all of a sudden done.)

The school term has started and so has the scouting season. Today we had a meeting/workshop for the leaders and functionaries. In a normal year this meeting would have taken place in the scout group’s own building. Now with the coronavirus, we were outdoors on the meadows near Gåseborg. Slightly less convenient perhaps, but much more pleasant and energizing. Fresh air and greenery and standing meetings instead of rows of wooden chairs – and lunch in the sun with views over Mälaren.

Adrian is at home with a cough since Friday. Since it’s getting close to a week since he could go to school, I thought it might be good for him to start catching up with schoolwork so he doesn’t have too much to make up when he is back at school.

Getting any kind of information or support from the school has been like pulling teeth. They have no preparedness for this at all. I tried calling the main administrative office. They only had an answering machine; didn’t call me back when I left a message; didn’t have any information when I finally got hold of them. The teacher didn’t even acknowledge that she had received my email. (I understand that she might not have time to write a detailed reply, but an “I’ll get back to you” would have been appreciated.)

In the end I just walked to the school and got hold of Adrian’s main teacher during a break. I got some of Adrian’s school books home at least, and some vague instructions.

How can the school be so unprepared for this, and have no plan and no co-ordination in place whatsoever? Surely it cannot come as a surprise to them that plenty of kids will now have to stay at home for extended periods due to minor cold-like symptoms.

Meanwhile, here’s a nice rainbow from this afternoon.