take the best, leave the rest

holiday season is one of my favorite times of the year. i love the winter wonderland of christmas time and delight in the collective good cheer that it brings. and like the good swedish girl that i am, i am very loyal to my swedish traditions. this means having my cookie party in preparation for sankta lucia, baking lussebullar and krumkaka and making glögg with my friends. it means my christmas goat comes out of storage and my red wooden candlesticks are lit every night. it means a number of other things (like buying jars and jars of herring that few of my non-swede friends will eat) but this year i will be missing many of my holiday rituals and traditions.

this year i am staying with my sister and her family in her adopted german home. some things aren't so different here...we both have christmas markets, warm sausages for sale on the street and mulled wine too. although, each time i reach the bottom of my gluhwein mug i think where are my almonds? it is good, but it isn't glögg.

so we learn that will survive without things being exactly the same as they have been in other years. we learn to share, with family and friends, our favorite customs and traditions. we can exchange recipes and meal ideas and everything will still be delicious even if it is different. we can veer off the expected and still have some of what we need to hold on to our memories. we can maintain what means the most to us and ask others to do the same. we can learn to blend the tried and true with the novel and new.

this year we can choose to relax about the getting and the giving and the rush of holiday madness. we can choose instead to open our hearts and minds and just experience the best and most cherished things this season offers us. we can recreate what we love and leave the rest. we can pare down and still indulge.

we can celebrate simply and still have fun.

*photo: jul i bullerbyn

peace on earth

Ha en riktigt fin julhelg allesammans – det ska vi ha!

my christmas wish via john lennon

happy christmas, god jul and peace on earth

so this is christmas/and what have you done/another year over/and a new one just begun/and so this is christmas/i hope you have fun/the near and the dear ones/the old and the young

a very merry christmas/and a happy new year/let's hope it's a good one/without any fear

and so this is christmas/for weak and for strong/for rich and the poor ones/the world is so wrong/and so happy christmas/for black and for white/for yellow and red ones/let's stop all the fight

a very merry christmas/and a happy new year/let's hope it's a good one/without any fear

war is over over/if you want it/war is over/now...

mixed bag

as i mentioned in my last post, i am one of those people that loves the holiday season. having said that, the holidays are not always the easiest time of year for everyone. for some, there is a special joy in the air and an eagerness to celebrate; still for others the decorations, songs and sounds and even the smells of christmas fill us with uneasy sense of dread, guilt and conflicted emotions. we were told we were supposed to enjoy and celebrate, yet our memories are void of that experience.

as much as i love the holidays, mine were not always filled with joy and good tidings. some years were sad and lonely, others made tense with family fights or missing members. sometimes while walking around my neighborhood enjoying the lights and bustle of activity, i am hit by a whiff of something that evokes a memory of someone or something i loved and lost. my lightness of heart suddenly crashed by grief, leaving me wounded and tender. these are strong feeling at this time of year.

it's not just about celebrating the holidays, it is also about the completion of a calendar year and reflecting back on this one and the others before this. maybe we worry about what we accomplished (or didn't), maybe we are missing a parent, family member or a friend we lost; maybe our own relationships or marriages are strained by the pressure of the holidays. it is a complicated time and often filled with intense memories and longings for what was or what we thought should be.

many of us are torn between what we want and what is expected. many of us are torn between families and their wants and demands. some of us have fantasies of our ideal holiday only to be let down by the reality of what they actually present.

remembering that these days are just a few in a many that make up our life allows some perspective. we can get through this. remembering what is worth cherishing and letting go of what hurts allows us to shape the holidays we want to have. allow yourself to feel, but not to dwell...take what you like and release what you don't. allow yourself to love...love yourself and others...that is really what this time of year is about. not creating perfection but celebrating what is good and what can be better.

nu är det jul igen

i love this time of year! i've just returned from gathering up all the stuff i need to host my cookie-baking party on saturday. i love mixing old family swedish traditions with my own new ones. that's my favorite part of the holidays - discovering different ways to celebrate the season while maintaining ties to my family and my past. i am so looking forward to being with friends and making a mess and enjoying some good stong glögg!