4th Advent Sunday / Winter Solstice

 

4th Advent Sunday today - and also the Winter Solstice. 

As I've mentioned before, the month of December so far has been unusually dark here this year - or at least so it has seemed. Yesterday I heard some additional statistics on the radio: In our capital Stockholm, it has been the darkest December since1934. So it has also very probably been the darkest month that I myself (born in 1955) have ever experienced! (Even if I don't live in Stockholm, but closer to the west coast.) 

Anyway, with the Winter Solstice behind us, even if still cloudy, we should now at least be able to look forward to a gradually increasing amount of daylight again!

I decided to celebrate the Winter Solstice with decorating my little Christmas tree...

... and by waking up the ten Santas sleeping in the tiny house on my kitchen window sill. Someone wondered on a previous post how they all fit in there, and if there was magic involved. My answer is that the magic lies in the camera perspective...

 

The Kitchen Gnomes (Part 1)

 

I feel that I must have told this story before, but I can't find evidence  of it now. (It may have been many years ago.) 

I had a period in my youth when I more or less banned gnomes of all kind from the Christmas decorations in my own home. But then for quite a few years I had a friend and neighbour with whom I used to exchange the service of watering each others' plants when the other was away on holidays. Her apartment, in contrast to mine, was always full of gnomes at Christmas time. So we were both well aware of our different "taste" when it came to decorations. 

Then one year she left a little parcel for me, which turned out to contain a tealight candle holder surrounded by five little gnomes - accompanied by a message that these gnomes were "seeking asylum" with me... Ah well... Put like that, how could I refuse... 

Next time it was my turn to water her plants at Christmas time, I had happened to find (in some shop) a "toothpick" pack with tiny Santa figures on them. (Probably meant to be used to decorate food served for Christmas.) So I planted those tiny Santas here and there, in flower pots or where else I could think of, around my friend's flat...

Over a number of years afterwards, around Christmas time, those tiny Santas then kept wandering back and forth between our flats... Sometimes most of them were at my place, sometimes at hers.

Photo from 2015

When I moved to my present apartment in 2008, the majority of them happened to be hibernating in my box of Christmas decorations... And as since then, that friend and I have no longer been watering each other's plants, those ten tiny gnomes have remained staying with me. Well - in my basement storage room 11 months of the year... But invading my kitchen window sill for a few weeks every year around Christmas...

Ssshh - they're still asleep in the Santa House... 
But I might wake them up for 4th Advent Sunday!

Gnome on the Stone, and Elf on the Shelf

 Today was another grey day, but it wasn't raining, and I had nothing special "scheduled", so I decided to go for a walk around the cemetery around noon, to get the most out of the little daylight that there was. For the first time since my knee injury I walked all around the place - and then a bit extra. (All in all I was out for about 45 minutes - using both walking poles.)

And old ("returned") grave reused as flowerbed, with some plants that still add a bit of colour to this grey season. 
 

Hydrangea climbing on the old stone wall along one side of the cemetery.

The buds on the rhododendron bushes seem a bit too far gone for their own good as well (I made the same observation about some azaleas on my last walk there). Weather forecasts now indicate that temperatures will probably be dropping again next week, though...

From a distance, on a grave out in one of the "fields", I spotted something very bright red on top of a standing headstone. I couldn't quite make out if it really was what I thought it looked like - or perhaps just some red flowers giving me the illusion...? So I decided I had to go and have a closer look - and it was indeed something I don't think I've ever seen as grave decoration before: 

I decided to blur the name before posting the photo here, but (not surprisingly) the grave belongs to someone who died only 19 years old, and less than a decade ago. 

When I got back home, I got started on my own "final" Christmas decorations... (Got those boxes up from storage yesterday, which was also laundry day for me, so I had to make a few turns down to the basement anyway.)

I don't have a lot of gnomes and "santas", but I have a few, which are now up on their usual shelves etc around my flat. For example, the Santa family knitted by my mum...

 ... And as soon as they had settled in, Skipper came to visit them, and return the stray little yarn gnome doll which she has been looking after all autumn (ever since I found him under the sofa, where he must have been hiding since last winter)...

As reward for her faithful "babysitting", when back home on her own shelf again, Skipper got to decorate her and Barbie's own Christmas tree:

 

This one also lives in my living room. He was bought by myself some time in this century, because he reminded me of Dumbledore (from the Harry Potter books). Therefore he also gets the company of the two little owls...

I also have a few kitchen gnomes, but I'll save those for another post. 

Gnome Invasion

Yesterday was grey and wet, and I did not get out at all. While I was busy with doing laundry, Barbie and Skipper were allowed to decorate their Christmas tree at last...

This is where they live (a book shelf next to my TV). A new neighbour also moved in upstairs from them yesterday. Or rather, a regular seasonal guest... ;-)

Other corners of my flat were also invaded by gnomes yesterday:

This family occupies their usual space on a picture shelf above my sofa. (Knitted by my mum, once upon a time. She made lots of similar dolls for annual Christmas markets held by the local history society in the village where my parents lived in their senior years. But these were part of her own Christmas decorations at home.) 

1,2,3,4,5 little ones have also taken their usual places on the corner shelf in my kitchen. (The other items sit there all year round.)

Some prefer the top of my cooker hood.

Some are still hiding and won't come out until even closer to Christmas. How many do you think this tiny house may contain? (The answer will be revealed in a few days or so. Some  observant reader with extremely good memory might even remember - so I'm not making a competition of it...)

December 15 - 3rd Advent Sunday

Old Bible in St Nikolai Church, Halmstad, Sweden
(open at the book of the prophet Jeremiah)

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.

St John 1:1 (NIV) 

 

The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
    before you were born I set you apart;
    I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

 Jeremiah 1:4-5 (NIV)

 St Nikolai * Church, Halmstad 

* Saint Nicholas of Myra (15 March 270 – 6 December 343) was an early Christian bishop of the ancient Greek city of Myra in Asia Minor during the time of the Roman Empire. He is also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker and his legendary habit of secret gift-giving gave rise to the traditional model of Santa Claus.