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!