Every one of us needs to use a wiper - toilet paper. In principle it makes sense to use a paper that is comfortable - soft and enduring enough. If in addition the paper brings joy or is otherwise good feelings via visual effect, why not...?
On aika rauhoittua jälleen, viihtyä ja nauttia antaen aikaa
ystävilleen.
Mennyt vuosi on paljon tuonut, nautintoja, iloja ja huoliakin suonut.
Kalat, laatikot, kinkku ja mädit odottaa, turha tässä painoa oliskin pudottaa.
Vuoden vaihdetta kohti leijutaan hyvillä mielin, seurana uros tai enkeli
sievin.
Ei posti meiltä sulle korttia tuo, siitä fyrkat meni tulevan lasten sairaalan
luo – anteeksi meille suo.
Perhe on iloiten leppoisasti koolla, ruokaa ja juomaa nauttien talkoolla.
Nautitaan ja iloitaan, iloitaan ja nautitaan, Joulupukkiakin viihdytetään –
tietty myös sitä oikeaa.
Kynttilöistä valoa, joulun iloa, loistavaa Joulua kaikille, myös meille!!!
Without crappy
poetry I am glad to
notice anther year with lots of experiences is getting towards the end and it’s time to enjoy and relax
with family and friends. Let’s enjoy the tastes, sounds and people. If you were
expecting a Christmas card from us, too bad. The little money we didn’t spend on them
is donated to support the new children’s hospital in Helsinki, Finland.
Nyt Herra
Tammisen sika on uunissa ja Glögiä suonissa. Christmas ham is in the oven and
glögi, the sweet glühwein, mulled wine, running in my veins.
As I said in my previous post, if you take the effort to notice people, help out or do something that is valuable to others, it will have a positive impact! Often it is about small things and sometimes you get something back - on top of a good mind.
Like happened to me.
The other day I was driving home and saw in front of me a car changing its lane insanely and crashing another car. For a second I wondered if they need help or if my involvement is needed, concluding that I should take the effort to help out. I made at least one person very glad!
It appeared that the quilty driver was not with Finnish origin and was not happy to admit it was his fault, as well as the innocent driver had no clue what she should do and had no documents to report the accident for insurance. I stated shortly what I saw, gave the "victim" some tips, gave the insurance form and a pen. Since I had to leave for an appointment, I gave her my contact details and asked her to contact me if needed.
Well, she didn't contact me directly but a courier rang my doorbell two days later and this is what I got:
It was quite a big packet as you can see from the tennis ball comparison. And this is what I found from inside:
The "victim" lady had sent me a flower and a thank you -note. Apparently my little effort was very valuable for her so it paid off. Small input, big positive impact...
While we are on traffic topic, I want to share a picture and the feeling from the shortest days of the year.
Today it felt that the sun did not raise at all (and actually it didn't in Lapland at Northern Finland). It was gray and rainy all day, hard wind and sooo sad looking pre Christmas day. Perkele. Most of the time people post only the shiny, nice images and tell positive stories - just like I prefer to do as I try to act via positiveness. But if something is shitty, I think it's ok to say it.
Luckily the gray day was gray only at weather, joyful Christmas is 2 nights away :o)
Have a great moment, soon the Santa, Joulupukki, is here! Hauskaa Joulun odotusta!!!
Corrected: "...Year 1917 Finland separated..."
----
Tomorrow December 6th is the Independence Day of Finland. Year 1917 Finland separated from Russia and started to develop a life of it's own. I guess someone at Russia - or later at Soviet Union - started to have doubts regarding the decision and hence they started a war against Finland at 1939, the famous Winter War.
This is how Wikipedia describes the winter war in brief; "The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1939–1940. It began with Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, and ended with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940."
Tomorrow the Finnish broadcasting company YLE shows again a classic movie about the second world war time in Finland, the Unknown Soldier - Tuntematon Sotilas from 1955. Wikipedia briefing at here and Youtube taste below.
Tomorrow's annual President's reception will be held at Tampere, since the precidential palace is under renevation. No dancing but a concert instead. Let's see what kind of a party it will be.
...and in case you are wondering, NO I am not going, it is always televized.
Let's finish off with a "music video" from the 1955 movie, a clip of Finlandia, composed by Jean Sibelius.
Hyvää 96. Itsenäisyyspäivää Suomi
-
Happy 96th Independence Day Finland!
PS To check out my older posts about Finland's independence, click here.
PPS It's only 19 days until Santa Claus, Joulupukki, comes over. Welcome Christmas!!!
I ate Rudolph! You know, the red nose reindeer. Extremely delicious :o)
Noooo, of course it was not Rudolph, it was his cousin...
Sautéed reindeer, or poronkäristys as we Finns call it, is quite easy to make. What requires most work is peeling the potatoes for the mashed potato. And what makes it even more difficult, is that the potatoes used for it are small and curvy almond potatos from Lapland, puikulaperuna.
Peeling 2 kilos of them is the hardest part, but you are allowed to do it while you are consuming the beer listed in the recipe...
I prepared to feed 4-6 people with 1kg of reindeer and 2 kilos of puikulaperuna for the mashed potato. Also 2 cans of dark beer is needed for the reindeer plus 3 beers per hour for the cook.
...this is something I failed to do as I started the cooking before noon, wanting to keep my mind and body clear for babysitting.
Actually she is not a baby as she is a BIG girl, way over 1 year old and in less than 2 months she will again meet the Santa Claus, Joulupukki. The real one from Korvatunturi at Lappland - not any commercial nonsense story from North Pole...
Back to the reindeer - here are few tips for cooking you might value;
When making the mashed potato, save some of the boiling water to moist it. It holds quite a lot of the taste. Be brave with the butter & salt, and don't forget to add some sugar. If you wanna go wild, try adding some goat cheese and honey.
For reindeer, don't save with the quality of the meat! Again, be brave with salt & pepper. And please, no lager beer or other watery one, use good dark beer!
Use juniper berries, katajamarja. At least in Finland you can get them in any market at least by Santa Maria spice company. From the Santa Maria -link you have access also for other Finnish specialties at www.suomikauppa.fi...
This morning we had at Helsinki area +1C, so almost at freezing point. Many cars had some ice on windows so it was a cold night. What proved we are back at normal September level with weather, was the sleet that came down from the sky several times during the day. No, the streets were not icy but still.
If you are interested to check out the local weather, go here.
Tonight it is estimated to go below zero, down to -1C. Hooray, winter is coming and we have less than 3 months before the Santa Claus, Joulupukki comes for a visit!
Helsinki Airport is currently - and surprisingly - the place in Finland with most snow. 66 cm, equals to 25,74 inches. I had a great morning; sleeping until 11 am, chill quick b-fast with a slice of bread and ham. Then outside to clear the yard from the snow. Almost an hour of good sweat and fresh air does wonders.
Also remember that enjoying outdoor is not limited to the time of the year.
I love winter!
...let's see what will I say in a month, after getting fed up with the bloody snow shoveling ;o)
Yesterday was THE Christmas night for us Finns. For me it meant food & home preparation, last minute shopping, relaxing with the family, visiting friends & family as a Santa's helper, fantastic meal, family time with talks and games, presents from Santa, more talks with the family - and 20 hours of snowing.
Today started with a nice breakfast, then some snow work and a fresh walk, Christmas sauna, some more snow work and now a moment at the sofa to share with you the sauna break moment.
The end of the world did not happen yesterday and hence we are going to a direction of more light. In Helsinki the sun rises already at 09:25 and goes down at 15:14 - 5 hours 49 minutes of official daylight. Up north the sun will stay down for weeks, last year the darkness ended Jan 17th at Utsjoki...
One can go mad from it.
Stay home to cook your Christmas ham - it's too expensive to go to the restaurant as the (already high prices) have increased by 40% since 2000. At the same time the shop prices have rised by 13% says Iltalehti... Or do you think up to 20 Euros is a fair price for a mojito? 19,90 at the Hard Rock Cafe Helsinki.
If someone has thought the Horror Story -series has made someone feel bad, I'm not sure how this one will impact. Who knows, I might be invited to the Russian Embassy...
I came across with a blog that is very local at Lappeenranta, Finland. It is a small city next to the Russian border and hence they have many Russians visiting. It has got some veeeery positive impacts on several areas - and on the other hand it also enriches the local parking culture.
Good or bad - you can judge yourself. One example was today at Helsinki City centre, where always-busy-street Northern Esplanad, Pohjoisesplanadi, had a Range Rover from beloved neighboring country double parked in front of the Stockmann book store, Akateeminen Kirjakauppa. Busy-as-standard street became even more busy...
As said, make your own mind about these, while I'd say park nicely as the Santa's helpers are on the move! Let's see if the end of the world comes today as estimated. I hope not, as I have not yet eaten enough Christmas goodies...
What can I say, she is on top of everything else soooo smart. How else can you describe a person who posts that her music(?) producer is in Miami and uses the pic + quote below?
And then some reporter writes about it in media...
And then some fool writes about it in a blog...
This is too much even for my taste. One can not get enough bored to enjoy something like this. One of them carries a passport with a "Male" tag and the other with "Female" tag - but why...? I can tell you the Christmas elves are not looking this with a happy face with only 5 nights to go.
I was in Lahti today. It's one of those small-medium size cities in Finland with somewhat 100.000 people. It's a city with sports, business and apparently as the main reason for existance manufacturing of furniture.
We should not forget the beverage / beer manufacturing that I wrote a saaaaad story about back at December 2009. ...strange, I've been doing this for years... Anyway, I was there today and I met the Santa Claus - Joulupukki!
First I was not sure if he was the real or only a helper, but dear friends well noted that "C'mon Mika, he recognized you and hence waived at you. He must have been the real one!". I agree. He sent his regards to the ones who are true believers.
The Santa was at a Christmas market in the city market square. They had a lot of Finnish stuff, mainly hand made - I also did a bit of shopping - and lots of food and glögi, the sweet non-alcoholic glühwein as you are not allowed to sell alcohol in Finland in such places. Same in Sweden...
The best positive surprise for me was though the guys that sold the German currywurst with a small bread - the one I call a hotdog for MEN!
The soft spot was the Lahti Men's Choir singing a traditional christmas song "Sylvian Joululaulu", in few Finnish votes selected as the most beautiful christmas song ever.
...post this on Christmas but why wouldn't I share what I was thinking then.
---- Tonight is THE Night - Hyvää Joulua!
Joulupukki - Santa Claus - Father Christmas - Père Noël - Julgubbe comes tonight at our place for a visit!
The real one. Let's hope he can make it inside this year, as many years he has left the presents outside in a sack. As you can see from some pics from the past, a I'll-do-my-best-as-Santa's-helper has stepped in and has taken the role of a Santa.
This Christmas we are sooooo lucky to have in Southern Finland, Helsinki area where I live, the traditional Belge winter weather! That means Bing Crosby and the guys have re-written the words for a song that is nowadays "I'm dreaming of a grey Christmas..."
Just remember, be aware of the fake Santa copies that try to cash in, instead of carrying on the true Christmas spirit...
For a certain reason, I have myself worked way too much during the past two months. Hence I am extremely happy to welcome a little break and get to relax enjoying the time with the family. I love it a LOT!!! And them too...
Already now, I truly recommend all of you who can appreciate beauty-for-an-eye to go alllllll the way to the end.
I hope you all have had at least a fraction of the Christmas feelings and joy that I have had! This year we have enjoyed the time by ourselves. The kids realized that this was the first ever X-mas we had in Finland by just ourselves. When our first born was less than 1 year, we moved from one grand-parents to others, keeping ourselves busy.
After that, until we moved to Belgium, we were in a lucky enough positon to invite the family to our place. No limitations (to certain limit), so if someone wanted to have on the table a specific food item, she/he was welcome to bring it. Then we of course split the work - and my Mom did the ham as you might guess from the previous pig's ass -post...
Fan-tas-tic = Fan-tas-tis-ta!!!
Good food, wine & champagne, beautiful surroundings, lots of candles, nice presents, good stories, revealing seacrets, remembering stories and people we care about, good movies (Hurt Locker, Eemeli by Astrid Lindgren, 102 Dalmatians...), siesta, sauna, calls / messages / a visit contacts with the close family members. As I put it: Fan-tas-tic!!!
The only thing I'm missing, is a music performance - even a short one - by the shy kids of mine. I hear them practice the saxophone and clarinet, but I rarely have a chance to see them play. Just imagine one of these played by your kid, live;
For this one, I really recommend to sit down, put on the best loudspeakers you have, and either just enjoy the music or read also the bits & pieces of history that the script brings along.
Finlandia by Jean Sibelius
Farti... - sorry, mistake. Let's try again.
Walking in the Air;
Yes, you are allowed to be either jealous or think that I am insane, what ever you see appropriate. What ever your thoughts are, I'm a a happy Father - Onnellinen Faija!!!
If I only had my own Santa's little helper...
I wish you all and your families, friends, loved ones, and whom ever you are interested in, the merriest Christmas! Hyvää Joulua!
Apologies for some copy-paste tech errors...
Language Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
######
Afrikaans Geseënde Kersfees en 'n voorspoedige Nuwe jaar
Geseënde Kersfees en 'n gelukkige nuwe jaar
Akeanon Maayad-ayad nga Paskwa
Mahigugmaon nga Bag-ong Dag-on kinyo tanan!
Albanian Gëzuar Krishtlindjet e Vitin e Ri
Aleut Kamgan Ukudigaa
Alsatian E güeti Wïnâchte un e gleckichs Nej Johr
Amharic (Melkam Gena) - Merry Christmas
- celebrated on 7th January
Melkam Addis Amet) - Happy New Year
- celebrated on 11th September
Apache (Western) Gozhqq Keshmish
Arabic (Modern Standard) أجمل التهاني بمناسبة الميلاد و حلول السنة الجديدة
(ajmil at-tihānī bimunāsabah al-mīlād wa ḥilūl as-sanah al-jadīdah)
Armenian (Eastern) Շնորհավոր Ամանոր և Սուրբ Ծնունդ
(Shnorhavor Amanor yev Surb Tznund)
Armenian (Western) Շնորհաւոր Նոր Տարի եւ Սուրբ Ծնունդ:
(Shnorhavor Nor Daree yev Soorp Dzuhnoont)
Բարի կաղանդ և ամանոր (Paree gaghant yev amanor)
Aromanian Cărciun hărios şi ti mulţă-anji Anlu Nàù!
Asturian Bones Navidaes y Gayoleru añu nuevu!
Aymara Sooma Nawira-ra
Azerbaijani Yeni Iliniz Mübarək / Təzə iliniz yaxşı olsun (Happy New Year)
Basque Zorionak eta urte berri on
Belarusian З Божым нараджэннем (Z Bozym naradzenniem)
Шчаслівых Калядау (Szczaslivych Kaliadau)
З Новым годам i Калядамi (Z Novym godam i Kaliadami)
Bengali শুভ বড়দিন (shubho bôṛodin)
শুভ নববর্ষ (shubho nôbobôrsho)
Bhojpuri शुभ क्रिसमस और शुभ नव वर्ष (subh krismas auur subh nav varsh)
Regards from Joulupukki, the real one, the one that lives at Korvatunturi in Finland. For mail, this should do it; Joulupukki Korvatunturi 99999 Korvatunturi Finland
PS Regards from Heidi, fantastic Christmas - I felt myself a bit over dressed...
The pig has been in the oven for almost 5 hours - and still cooking. I'm facing midnight and still need to stay up until it is ready. Not that many degrees to heat up any more, now it is at 73 Celcius degrees and it should be between 75 and 80, depending on how we wish it to be.
Good thing is that part of the game is to enjoy chocolate, cookies and glög...
This is the first time I'm cooking the ham from start to finish - and happy to do it. Mom would be proud of me ;o) We went to say hi to her and lit a candle to warm her up on otherwise wet, gray and windy place. And same thing for my father, as well as all the others who are on top of our minds but not available for a visit or a phone call... It was still beautiful thanks to the hundreds of candles glowing in the dark.
Today is the longest night = shortest day of the year. In Helsinki, Southern Finland the sun got up at 09:24 am and went back to sleep at 15:13 pm. That makes the luxus day 5 hours and 48 minutes long. Up North in Lapland, the place where the real Santa Claus, Joulupukki, comes from the sun will rise again next year on Jan 17th.
In Utsjoki, the furthers place up there, the sun went asleep on November 26th so quite a night...
To finish off, here are some Finland facts for you, what do we close to 6 million people consume over the Christmas period;
1.500.000 liters of red wine
580.000 liters of Glögi, the sweet Glüehwein
7.000 extra overnight sleeping places in trains (that are traveling up North and back)
1.500.000 Christmas trees
Hyvää Joulun aikaa ja taikaa! 2 more nights to go before the Santa comes...
Little piggy, come here to eat and grow - Daddy's gonna eat you afterwards...
From piglet to Christmas ham in 6 months;
On Saturday Dec 3rd Helsingin Sanomat, THE main morning paper in Finland, had a story about a pig that they were monitoring from birth to meat. Of course the web version at hs.fi was shorter, so I should share some bits & pieces with you.
June 3rd the male piglet number 301 was born at Pöytyä, Finland
For the first two weeks, the piglet is fed with milk by the BIG mama pig that can weigh even 250 kilos
At the age of 2 weeks, the pig weighs 3-4 kilos and starts to get proper food, starting with fodder
When the pig is 4 weeks, he says bye-bye to mama pig and is separated also from the other sex. That is the male pigs and female pigs are grouped separately.
When the pig is 3 months old, it is already 40 kilos and picks up almost one kilo per day
The doom day for the pig number 301 was November 21st, while the weight was already 126 kilos.
On November 22nd the pig had transformed from a pig into meat, that was getting ready to be eaten around the world: Majority - including a Christmas ham - in Finland, ribs in USA, front claws - etusorkat - in Malesia where they are treated as a delicasy.
On December 24th somewhere in Finland the ham offered by the pig number 301 will be the centre point of a Cristmas meal
If you don't like the facts above, perhaps you should change the habit what you eat. At 2010 we Finns ate 71,9 kilos of meat per capita. Out of that, 34,8 kilos was pork = pig, 18,5 kilos chicken etc birds and 18,6 was from cows/bulls.
Is here in place the old saying "you are what you eat"?!? Here is a Finnish tribute song for a Christmas ham.
Luckily the singer, late Juice Leskinen was a handsome one.
Back to the pigs.
My mother used to stay up - or wake up when needed - to make sure the ham was properly cooked. A big one, in this case one around 10 kilos, took easily more than 12 hours. Nowadays we've had a smaller one for our family, even for a bit extended one, but still it takes hours to cook it and I have practiced it now for a couple of times. More I've been involved with putting the jacket on the ham, also a sort of an art that I am happy to practice more.
Since Mom is not around. And I miss her, of course more at this type of times where I have so strong memories connected! Joo, Äitiä ikävä...
My Mom loved the singer of this song, Vesa-Matti Loiri - who is not on top of my favorite list as a singer. Great artists and a sportsman in many areas. Another on in Finnish, enjoy.
5 nights to go before some kilos of pig's bum is on our table. Hyvää Joulun odotusta!!!
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!!!
Now that our American friends have finished the Thanksgiving turkey and turn the mode towards Chirsmas, I think it's time to think about what christmas lights and how we should put up. Some seem to think it is stylish enough to just throw up a line of lights on a tree, but I've got news to you: It's not!
