A few snapshots from the Bergheden family Christmas party. Food (potluck style), conversations, and presents for the kids.

Ingrid has been working extra at Spånga Konditori, a local café, since the start of this school year. Manning the till, serving cakes, brewing coffee, selling bread, etc etc. She’s been bringing home all sorts of goodies – from rescued day-old leftover bread that would otherwise go in the bin (my colleagues have gotten so much sourdough bread from that place!) to super-fancy pastries that she can buy at a nice employee discount.

I’ve been wanting to stop by to visit her and take some photos, which sounds uncomplicated, but the tricky part is doing it without disrupting her work. She mostly works weekends, for a number of obvious reasons, and weekends at the café are busy. They’re not quite understaffed, but they’re also not not understaffed. Now during the Christmas break, she was available for work on a Friday, and I got my chance.

Looking super professional!

Sweeney Todd at the Royal Opera. Technically a musical, which is nice, because it made the whole thing sound more pop-culture-ish and got the kids to join, but really, what makes this a musical rather than an opera?

I was most impressed by the work of the dialect coach, because Ms Lovett sounded as British as could be, and so did the others.

Ingrid building her new computer.

For both Ingrid and Adrian, computer games is their main hobby, so a second gaming computer each was more or less a must-have for their split living situation, on par with a bed, a desk and a wardrobe. You can’t cart gaming computers, monitors etc back and forth every week.

It’s Christmas Eve!

Knowing Nysse and his habit of attacking wrapped-up gifts, with all their play-friendly paper and ribbons and shiny bits, we didn’t leave the gifts out overnight. But when he’d had his breakfast and gone out, we put the gifts under the tree. He managed to attack one of them – luckily the one where the inner layer was a sturdy cardboard tube, and thus hard to damage and easy to re-wrap – but after that I kept my eye on him all the time and chased him away twice, after which he was almost afraid of even going near the tree, so there was no more damage.

Lunch was devilled eggs, pickled herring of three kinds (flavoured with blackcurrant, apple and curry, and mustard, respectively) and a citrus and gravad lax salad. Plus potatoes and vörtbröd, a Swedish Christmas bread.

Ingrid piped and decorated the eggs, and folded the napkins.

The citrus and salmon salad was a new entry on the menu. Tasted good!

Then it was time for presents. With everybody so grown-up, there’s a lot less cheering and jumping up and down than there used to be!

Nysse, when he woke up, attacked the rolled-up Santa hats as if they were fluffy little animals, and for some reason really enjoyed licking the little olive wood bowl that I gave to Eric.

Ingrid is practising for her upcoming driving test.

She started last autumn, took a break last winter, started it up again in spring, and has now been amping up the intensity during the fall. Eric and I have both been driving around with her for what is starting to feel (to all of us) like forever. She can drive, and has been a decent enough driver for a while already, but the tests are really nit-picky and you have to do everything perfectly to pass.

We made gingerbread cookies. Store-bought ones can’t compete, and I realize I need to copy Eric’s recipe because otherwise next Christmas in this household will be a sad affair.

Every year we tell ourselves that we will only bring out the most important cutters and that there is no need to dirty all of them. Our priorities overlap but only partially, and we end up using at least two thirds of all the cutters anyway. I like the traditional shapes, Ingrid wants the ones that are good for decorating, Adrian prefers the small ones that are best at using up the most dough. Eric is happy to just bake whatever we cut.

The dough gets smaller and smaller with each round, but there will be no wastage!

One of the major things on Ingrid’s wish list for her birthday was to get her ears pierced. Today we made it happen.

We did some research online and opted for an actual piercing studio, rather than the quick and cheap piercing gun solution. Piercing Monroe did an excellent job, both before and during our visit. Ingrid is pain-sensitive and not at all fond of needles (and who is, really?) but they were the perfect combination of kind and professional and made everything go very smoothly. Very positive experience.

The lovely little studs are hammered gold, styled to look like they’re covered with tiny crystals.

Ingrid’s third year at high school revolves around the upcoming graduation.

Back in my days, graduation involved one party (dinner and disco) for the students and their friends, then a champagne breakfast in the park on graduation day, and a reception for family and friends.

Over time, more and more has been added to this, and all sorts of enterprises want to get part of the cake. Ingrid’s classmates have been working and saving up since their first year.

At some point, being transported home from the graduation ceremony in a slightly fancier borrowed car mutated into studentflak, riding around town on the back of a lorry, while tooting the horn and playing loud music and spraying beer over everything and everybody. That was clearly a winning concept, so it went from an informal “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if” to an entire industry.

There are parties all year long. Ingrid’s school has a 200-day-party as well as a 100-day-party. There are graduation cruises.

Student caps/graduation caps have come to be individualized and commercialized beyond belief. Not only are they embroidered with your name, you can customize every part of them: material, shape, extra features. You can literally get LED lights on the front of your cap. And every time you pick a cheaper option, the site prompts you: are you sure you don’t want this popular extra? You’re missing out! Predatory marketing tactics towards young, inexperienced buyers, for products costing thousands of kronor. Eugh.

Anyway, Ingrid has gotten through that frustrating process, and now has her cap.

A somewhat delayed eighteenth-birthday dinner for Ingrid, at Berns Asiatiska, by her request. Her boyfriend Albin also joined us, for the first time.

Berns Asiatiska was Stockholm’s first Chinese restaurant back in the 1940s, and it still has and old-school luxurious interior, reminding of days gone by, with crystal chandeliers and wood panelling. Very festive.

The sound level was very modern, though, actually making it difficult to talk to people across the table. We all kept having to ask each other to repeat our words. So there was more focus on the food and less on the conversation.

Ingrid, of course, ordered sushi. So did Eric and I.

She chose Berns because they serve not only excellent sushi but also excellent Asian fusion dishes for those who aren’t fond of seafood. (Like Adrian and Albin.) Adrian had a giant serving of tonkatsu, while Albin had Korean barbecue chicken. Both were happy with their dishes.

My dessert was a bit of a disappointment. Titled “Cherry and lime”, it led me to expect an explosion of flavours. But the cherry sorbet(?) barely tasted of cherry, and the fluffy, creamy lime was also very delicate in flavour. Not bad, per se, but after eating sushi with wasabi and soy sauce, this felt very tame.