Happy Holidays Everybody

To all our Christian readers, Merry Christmas. To my friends of other religions, happy holidays.

J and I are getting ready to visit South Carolina. We leave early, very early, Christmas morning. We are exciting to visit family we haven't seen in a long while.

Stockholm is very festive with Christmas lights everywhere. The NK department store has some amazing window displays. Kungstragården has a Christmas market and an ice skating rink (they flooded the area around the statues. In fact Christmas markets (Jul markets) are in every square, it seems.




The PUB department store, which has a sexy underwear department whithin it, had a provacative display of a manekin clad in sexy underwear pushing a wheel barow full of dildos. They had another even a little more provactive. Both were removed after some complaints but before I could take a photo.



It is dark and cold outside but people get out. The strollers are covered. Ears are covered. Fingers are covered. But peope are out. How cold is it? Actually it's around freezing but it seems much colder because of the humidity.

Most people put lights in their windows. Candles are extremely popular. Many stores mark that they are open, not with neon, but with candles on the sidewalk on either side of ther entrance. It's all quite nice.

I've added some more photos to the Flickr set called December Stockholm 2007. I'm sorry so many are a bit dark. The days are short here and I'm usually at work during the light part of the short day. Plus, we've had a lot of gray skies - nature paying us back for the beautiful summer skies we had this year, I guess.



Looking back over this year, we are thankful for all that we had, then new friends we've made in Sweden. We've missed our familiy, dogs, and old life, too. Although there is an adventurous aspect to this sojourn and we've enjoyed getting to know the Swedish culture and even a little of the language, returning home will be so sweet. Christmas makes us homesick.