Christmas Peace

It's the evening of Christmas Day, and all the excitement and anticipation that comes with a family Christmas is over.

Yesterday was very nice, as we celebrated Christmas Eve in the traditional way. The boys were understandably a bit restless at first, but the centuries-old, annual declaration of Christmas Peace at noon put them in the proper mood.


Christmas Peace was declared in the city of Turku at noon, Christmas Eve










Before going to Grandma's and Grandpa's, we stopped - as most Finns do on Xmas Eve - at the cemetery (in Helsinki) to light candles at the graves of family members buried here and for those loved ones who rest in other cemeteries and cities. The sight of a large cemetery lit up with thousands of candles is always moving, even on a snowless Christmas (Helsinki was without snow, but we had and have some centimeters).






After that, it was a very nice evening with Marko's family. The boys enjoyed themselves (and Grandma's famous Xmas dinner!) immensely and Santa himself dropped by and brought them just the stuff that had been on their letter to Santa! Seasonal magic :)














Not that presents and gifts are the important stuff of Christmas, but it has to be said the kids have been having a great time with their new stuff: lightsabers, vintage Donald Duck comics, Simpsons stuff - and a little synthesizer! It's a basic Yamaha for Atte who had been plag--- I mean, entertaining us for many a pre-holiday week with his non-stop I'll-learn-to-do-this-by-myself piano playing. He's very enthusiastic (and pretty talented) about it, and so we thought it would be nice if he had his own keyboard instrument... with a headphone connection ;-)



Reko gets into the comics Christmas spirit with a collection of vintage Donald Duck Christmas tales (1945-1963) by the comics legend Carl Barks.














So now it's 11 pm, the kids are very much asleep and Annu is putting finishing touches on our Christmas Day special for adults: re-arranging the downstairs bookshelves! We think we'll watch a movie yet before lights out - we've slept so well the past couple of nights that we can do a late nighter, like in our younger days... :)

Hugs to everyone!

Birthdays and Christmas headbangers

Atte will turn seven on Tuesday but he already had birthday celebrations during this weekend. We had guests over on both Saturday and Sunday. It was an extra busy weekend since Reko's music school had their Xmas concert on Saturday and the boys' school's Xmas bazaar sale was today; hosting both adults and sugar-high firstgraders on top of those was a decent test of stamina for us.

Atte's birthday weekend was nice, though. He got a new bike - we know it's a strange season for bicycles but his old one got stolen earlier in the autumn, and he asked for a new one for his birthday already then. And thanks to the help from grandma, grandpa and auntie, we got him what he wanted and needed: a seven-speed beauty with 24-inch tires, a far cry from the kiddie bike he rode before. Atte just loves to ride his bike, so this one he really appreciated.

Snow has been coming and going and the temperature hovers one day just below, then just above freezing. We did have quite the winter wonderland again for a few days, but that's pretty much gone now, too. Santa will probably have to use reindeers of the flying variety because the sleigh's no good on slush. But there's no way weather's damping our Xmas spirit, and gingerbread cookies have been baked as they should. Even by adults.

We planned to go the top Finnish heavy metal musicians' 3rd annual "Heavy Xmas" concert on the 20th - they play wonderfully and the arrangements are pretty tasteful and respectful, really. But it seems others like this stuff too: the concert's sold out and we now try to get someone less enthusiastic than us to separate himself from his tickets for our benefit. There's a nice musicians' web site that may turn out helpful, but we have to be prepared to face an evening at the movies in the end.

One working week to go, and then we can settle into holiday peace. Some family members have already done that:


And now - where's the hot glogg...