Christmas Festivities

Last weekend, I took Kristen down to our local branch of the Church of Sweden. They were hosting a Christmas bazaar, which included several activities for kids. Kristen baked gingerbread cookies (again), crafted a couple of marzipan figurines, and made a little snowman. Unlike church activities in the US that are generally covered by the church budget, these activities cost 10 SEK a piece. This isn't a lot, but it is different than what I used to expect. Another interesting feature of the bazaar was the sale of mini-lottery tickets. Maybe they are more like raffle tickets. The Swedes seem to sell these at every major event (I saw them at Midsummer, too), but it struck me as strange when most churches in the US frown on gambling.

Kristen drawing the arms on her snowman.

Rolling out the dough.

Using the cookie-cutters.

Her sheet of unbaked cookies. They baked them for us, and we picked them up before we left to take home with us.

Playing with the marzipan. I washed my hands after taking this picture so I could help her. I didn't take another picture of the final product because my hands were sticky. She made a caterpillar and a snowman.

That evening, we attended a Christmas party for the 20+ group at our church. This was hosted by some of our dear friends in Sweden, the Strandroths. Timothy is pretty sure he was the oldest there, but we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. At this point, I did not know what to expect, but this was unlike the Christmas gatherings I have attended in the past . We all made different kinds of Christmas candy, and we ate the Swedish version of rice pudding. Or maybe it is more like rice porridge. Either way, it was yummy. We also sang Christmas carols in Swedish, and we took this little Christmas "quiz." The person with the highest score won the gingerbread house that a few people had made that evening.

The next evening, we returned to our friends' house and experienced our first Julbord. We consumed sylta, various varieties of sill, a yummy Christmas bread, Swedish meatballs, prinskorv, eggs with mini shrimp on top, potatoes, and more. It was a lot of fun trying the traditional Swedish Christmas foods, and we did our part by sharing one of our traditional desserts: pumpkin pie.

Gingerbread Trains, Angels, and Snowflakes

Today we made gingerbread cookies. AJ and I made the dough in the morning, and then we put it in the fridge until after nap-time. When it was time to take the dough out of the fridge, I let K and AJ choose a few cookie-cutters to use. I limited their selection as I did not want to wash every single cookie cutter I own. AJ chose a train set we have, and Kristen opted for an angel and a snowman. My choices were two sizes of the traditional gingerbread man.

AJ with his ball of dough.

Kristen with her ball of dough.

AJ trying to push his cookie cutter down through the unrolled dough.


Kristen rolling out her dough.

Kristen using her cookie cutters.

AJ rolling out his dough.

AJ using his cookie cutters.

The undecorated cookies.

Some of the decorated cookies.

There's a Grocery Store Where?

The other day, the kids came out of my bathroom pushing Hunter's bathtub along the floor. In it was everything that was not bolted down in the bathroom. It was full of their bath toys, toilet paper, our scale, and towels, among other random items. When I asked what they were doing, they answered that my bathroom was City Gross (one of the local grocery stores), and they were checking out. I told them to pretend that they were home from the grocery store and put everything away where it belonged. AJ protested that the bathroom was City Gross and he needed to put things away in the playroom since that was their "home." I stood firm, and they reluctantly obeyed. Although their "shopping cart" was not completely emptied, I was just glad I wouldn't have to worry about hunting down essential bathroom items before I needed them. Another note of consolation: they left the toilet brush alone.

First Teeth

Hunter recently got his first two teeth. His first tooth came through a week ago Sunday, then his second one came through a week later, showing its little jagged edge sometime on the First Advent Sunday. Hunter loves to grab fingers and chew on them. This has gotten much more painful recently with the arrival of these two incisors.

Believe it or not, Hunter didn't mind at all that I was sticking my fingers in his mouth to take the picture.