snowy, sunless days sow seeds of spring-longing

Ok, i'm not sure where that little diddy came from. I think i just wanted to ryhme, because actually I'm content and mostly delighted with the winter weather here in Sweden. Typical late November weather here is cold, cloudy, rainy (with some snow), and a 3:30 sunset. December should be better, with more snow brightening the landscape and with everyone wanting to be huddled inside around candles and fireplaces anyway. On December 21st the days start getting longer instead of shorter, and i'll be ready for it. The darkness makes me sleepy and gives me low-energy, and that can be tough. And mostly I just can't wait to place little seedlings in the ground and grow a garden again.

I feel i have some rather random things to say so i'll just dive in. One is that i wanted to say a late happy birthday to the beloved Astrid Lindgren, who turned 100 a couple weeks ago. In reality she died a few years ago, but her birthday is always celebratd in Sweden and other parts of the world. She created the books about the strong-willed and strong-muscled Pippi Långstrump (Pippi Longstockings), who if you don't remember, was able to lift her horse above her head with ease. :) Pippi was a little too bold for some of the readers in the man's world of the 1940s into which she was born, yet it's not surprising that she was born in Sweden since this country is still in many ways leading the world on issues of gender equality. (They were just voted number 1 in an annual ranking by a Swiss group which evaluates countries on the basis of gender equality. In case you're interested, the top countries after Sweden were Norway, Finland, and Iceland (go Scandinavia!:) Yeman was last, and the US was 31st, after Cuba and South Africa....hmm)

Anyway, Astrid Lindgren wrote many more wonderful children's tales which are worth reading and which I myself have on my long "have to read" list.

While I'm on the topic of children's books from Sweden I want to mention the artist of the beautiful painting at the top of my blog. His name is John Bauer and he illustrated many of the fairy tales that came out of Sweden one hundred years ago, which are unsurprisingly about mostly trolls and other forest creatures. I love how literature reflects the local, simple, everyday things which are common for each place it comes from. A Swedish story about little red mushroom children who live in a blueberry forest may seem exotic to an outsider but to anyone who has walked the paths of the forests here can easily see where these writers get their ideas. :) You can see more of Bauer's painints here if you're interested: http://bauer.artpassions.net/

December looks to be an exciting month for me, with the highlight of course being my trip home on December 17th, which will last for 3 long (hopefully) weeks and be filled with family, friends, and contradancing calvin's dance shoes right off his feet. But before then comes the start of Advent on the first Sunday in December, where everyone begins to light the advent candles and perhaps open a little gift every day before christmas. On December 10th the Nobel Prize ceremony comes to the palace in Stockholm where the king and queen of sweden hand out these famous prizes and all of Sweden watches a live broadcast of the gourmet dinner and ball held afterwards. On December 13th is Lucia (i'll tell more later), and in between all this there is lots of food and sweets.

Today I went sledding with Alexander and Erik, and I felt seriously like a kid again, where you are so excited about what you're doing you never take a walking (but only running) step and you find you can't get your words of delight out of your mouth without shouting them. It was a beautiful clear day, below the freezing point, and with a lovely icy snow on the ground. Now it's dark, and i think i'll go light some candles and work on my knitting.