Tagged: holidaze

28
Nov
2021

GIVING MEANS GETTING AND WE DO, IN SPADES

Yesterday was our annual Friendsgiving. We were looking forward to it SO much and it didn’t disappoint. It was the first time Martin has been included in 4 years (he DID have family Thanksgivings in Michigan with my mom, and occasionally my sister so he wasn’t totally deprived). The first year after we moved to Sweden, when I was hugely pregnant with Martin, we had Thanksgiving in our apartment, with my mom and Anders’ family, who had never been subjected to traditional American Thanksgiving food before and didn’t quite know what to make of the stuffing or the pumpkin pie....

08
Nov
2021

GIGGLING AND GRAVESTONES

This past Saturday was All Saints Day (also known as All Hallow’s Day) here in Sweden. It was late this year, falling on November 6. A lot of older Swedes are against Halloween simply because when it falls on a Saturday, which means it is ALSO All Saints Day, the sacredness of the holiday is overshadowed by the newfangled ridiculousness of an American holiday which “doesn’t even belong here”. So I’m always glad when Halloween doesn’t hit All Saints Day. What’s really super confusing is that there are TWO All Saints Days, both of which are celebrated in Sweden. One...

31
Oct
2021

PUMPKIN TO TALK ABOUT

There’s no knowing when you will do something for the last time. I suppose this is why we cling so to tradition. It’s a continuation in an uncertain world. All those years of holiday celebrations, dressing up for Halloween, coloring eggs for Easter, cooking turkeys for Thanksgiving, filling stockings for Christmas; they’re all ways to hold on to what we have, and what we want to remember and most of all what we want to pay forward into our lives. Yesterday, I went and bought Halloween candy and filled our biggest bowl in anticipation of trick-or-treaters tonight. Last year, trick-or-treating...

19
Aug
2021

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

I’m still in the middle of vacation, home, doing not much of anything. I have another week after this, but I’m honestly debating whether to go back to work a little early. I’ve had things to do, don’t get me wrong, but this past week I’ve been “trapped” at home without a car most days and it’s been pretty much raining non-stop for longer than that. It makes me question how I’ll be able to handle retirement in 10 years. Mind you, I am NOT complaining about too much vacation, rather I am thinking I need to fill my days...

03
Apr
2021

A WEEKEND OF MENTAL HEALTH BOOSTERS

I read recently that birdwatching from your home provides a major boost to mental health. The article says, “Researchers from the University of Exeter recently found that bird watching can have a positive effect on mental health. They discovered that people who are able to watch birds from their homes have a lower risk of depression, stress, and anxiety compared to people who live in less nature dense areas with fewer birds.” We have two bird feeders set up at the corner of the deck, one that holds 2 suet balls and one that is 2-sided for sunflower seeds and...

30
Dec
2020

RETROSPECTIVE

ad a laugh just now when I looked back at my Retrospective entry from last year, and the expectations I had for the first year of the 20’s. Well, THAT certainly didn’t turn out as planned…for any of us. The H at the beginning of this post really sums up the entire year of 2020 for me. The terrifying split that is defining my birth country, the polarization of politics, the crisis of the global pandemic, the destruction of all our plans for the year. And personally, the passing of my grandmother in July and the sale and packing up...

27
Dec
2020

INBETWEENING

I’m a big fan of wish lists (not to mention lists in general). They’re helpful and useful and revealing and mistake-free. Some people claim not to like providing wish lists because then, they say, they’ll know what they are getting. Or they think that you should know them well enough to know what presents to get them. Screw that, I say. There’s no time for that. There is nothing wrong with getting a list of gift ideas for people, so that you don’t buy things that the recipient doesn’t want or doesn’t like or already has. I’d rather give nothing...

24
Dec
2020

EK FAMILY CHRISTMAS LETTER 2020

Oh 2020, we had such high hopes for you! Martin was going to come home in the spring and we were going to go the States for summer vacation and everything was going to be wonderful. I almost feel like I could write this letter sort of like the part of Twilight where Edward leaves Bella, and for four or five months there are just blank pages with the month’s name on them. Karin and Anders did manage some ski trips at the very beginning of the year; Karin spent a week in Austria with a friend and then the...

13
Dec
2020

LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

We’ve had approximately ONE hour of sunlight in December so far. And in the past month, we’ve had a total of 24.3 hours of sunlight…spread out over 3 days. I looked at the weather app for Lund for the coming week and all it showed was clouds and rain. I’m guessing that even when the solstice comes, it will make no difference for the next couple of months. Normally this time of year we average around 52 hours of sunlight, which is still AWFULLY little. Seems like weatherwise, all we have to look forward to is depression and sadness. I...

08
Dec
2020

BRING IT ON

I’m feeling on top of things concerning the holidays. I wrote and printed our Christmas letter several weeks ago, which felt idiotic because usually it’s a rundown of the things that have happened in the past year, and like everyone else, NOTHING happened in the past year, because everything that was planned got canceled, and we’ve only been at home. I sat and wrote out my short list of Christmas cards during the AWC Zoom meeting the last week of November and got them in the mail last week. I only send printed cards to people who reciprocate so the...

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