Daily Archive: January 5, 2012

The Swedes have a saying about getting a “soft start” on something (mjukstart), which means to ease in gradually. Right now we are having a mjukstart to the year, which we have every year here due to the fact that January 6 is a National Holiday. It’s Epiphany, which is a religious holiday in a very non-religious country. In fact, the calendar year is full of national holidays based on the old religious celebrations, though they did take away Whitsun a few years ago, or rather traded it for Sweden’s National Day (June 6). Last year, after January 6 we...