Sunday, December 18, 2011

6 nights to go...!

Christmas is right around the corner, 6 more nights to go. And 7 for the ones who need to wait for it until 25th.

When I was a kid, we had a tradition to decorate the Christmas tree only on the morning of the 24th, not before. We got the tree the day before from the salesmen nearby and got it indoors to melt down - as most of the time we had snow. In our family, we have together with my wife created the tradition so that we get the tree and decorate it some days before Christmas. Today was the day - and now we can enjoy it longer.

Let's be honest, we also need all the help we can to cheer us up, it feels the sun is not coming up at all and it is raining sideways. This has been the horror image I was NOT missing while we were in Brussels. There the days are at least a bit longer...

Yeah, down side is that the winter lasts normally 2 days, 1 day at a time during the "winter season". On a good day it feels like spring, while on a bad day it is a looong grey fall day.

We had a busy day, starting with an early wake-up call to watch a football (soccer) game at 8 am. Again enjoyable moments - naturally as my son was playing - and they got a tight 1-0 win. OK, they should have scored few more goals from the places they had, but no.

After a short Sunday siesta it was time run some errands - with also a tree in mind. The options are to buy a tree from one of the pop-up sales spots around the corner, or from one of the bigger stores. I chose the second option as it had been raining a lot and I didn't want to get a wet-wet-wet tree indoors. It didn't harm that to my knowledge the price was also lower in the store.

We've had traditionally the standard tree, forest spruce - metsäkuusi. During our Belgium years we got used to the Abies Normanniana, somewhat Caucasian tree with longer, thicker and softer needles. The good thing with them is that they don't drop the needles that easily. The down side is that they don't smell as good as the forest spurce...
The standart spurce costs from about 15 Euros up to I guess 50, while the Caucasian ones are from 25ish to 60. I love the plastic net that they nowadays use all over to wrap the tree for the transportation. Veeeeery handy!

Well, this year our tree looks like this - every year a bit different as we have shitloads of decorations. Too much someone would say. And actually has said.
Sorry about the pic quality - it was easiest to use the phone camera as it is smoothly connected via bluetooth to the laptop I use to write this. No wires - no worries (I wish)...

Come on Christmas, we will be ready to take you - snow or not, we'll just put up more candles and outdoor fire!
Hyvää Joulun odotusta!!!

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