A week is too long. I start to stumble and slide. My temper slips, and slithers a bit. I don’t know how single parents do it, I honestly don’t.
Anders is home, even if for just a one-night-stand-stop, in the midst of his business trip, and suddenly I’m walking on sunshine again. 🙂 It helped that the SUN was also walking on sunshine again today. How many days in a row is that? I’ve lost count! UNPRECEDENTED! It’s been a magical autumn with all the unaccustomed sunshine we’ve had in Sweden, long may it continue! It makes it so much easier to deal with the encroaching darkness when the actual daytime is dayLIGHT.
I came home to a kitchen table absolutely HEAPED with American goodies! He read my journal while he was in the States and saw the mentions of all the things I forgot to put on the list, and absolutely EVERYTHING was there. I can’t believe he didn’t dislocate a shoulder lugging all of it home in a suitcase. And even a present that wasn’t on the list: a Christmas sweater from my favorite store (who don’t have an online business, which, hello, what is up with that?)! A soft and cuddly black with a little embroidered santa figure on the front! I’m thrilled that he thought of it, because I haven’t had a Christmas sweater in years. He even found Christmas presents for the kids AND brought back some stuff for my brother. 🙂
With Thanksgiving coming up this week, yet another one spent far from home, far from my mom and sister and brother, far from the happy, laughing hum of relatives playing bridge and cousin’s conversations in every corner and boardgame players sprawled out on the floor, a little taste of home was a defiinite pick-me-up. We are hosting our annual Swedish-American Thanksgiving bash this weekend, and will surround ourselves with good friends and excellent food and that helps, too.
I love that we expats take the time and the energy to import our treasured traditions and make them a part of our lives, even here in Sweden. Easter egg hunts, Halloween costumes, a Thanksgiving feast, stockings hung by the fireplace bookshelves with care and colored lights on our Christmas tree. They fit right in with, and even enhance our melding of Swedish and American traditions. Throwing a 4th of July party doesn’t detract from celebrating Midsommar, it just means we have 2 things to be thankful for as the daylight reaches its longest point. Opening gifts with Swedish family on Christmas Eve doesn’t detract from the presents that “Santa” leaves under the tree on Christmas morning from America. Even though we must hold our Thanksgiving feast on a Saturday since there is no 4-day weekend here, it doesn’t matter, as the things we are thankful for are still enumerated and celebrated.
Cracking Me Up: Did Tom Clancy Write That?
Long, Loping Birthday Wishes to dbrus!