Less than one month to christmas or Jul (Yule) as we call it and it is even less left until it stops getting darker and turns toward longer days again. Even though December is just as grey and dreary as any winter month it still feels better just because Christmas really starts at December first. People put up the electric Advent stars and electric Advent candlestick in the windows, some decorate with lights in their gardens, most just a few light chains but at some go all american as we say and decorate with so much strains and figures that most of us say: Yeah their electrical bill will cost a fortune 🙂 🙂 🙂
Most outside decorations are pure white but some do get multi colored ones and I really like that. Back in the days people who used colored lights in any christmas decorations were seen as a bit odd, perhaps even tasteless 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m so glad we aren’t that hysterical now days 🙂 🙂 🙂 A lot of people have already started with the decorations of course and it seems as the younger they are the earlier they start which of course more conservative people think destroys the joy and believe that people will get tired of it too early, too bad that those making christmas tv commercials are more conservative because those adds are already tiresome I think since they started in late October 🙂 🙂 🙂
However the advent candlestick with live candles must be prepared before Sunday. I usually have one but I never light the candles, I have this phobia when it comes to live candles and living in a wood cottage built 1911 🙂 🙂 🙂 I would have to blow out the candles and then place the whole thing outdoors, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to sleep before I had put it outside 🙂 🙂 🙂 It doesn’t help having a kitten, now also named the monster, walking around burning candles 🙂 🙂
The tradition on when to bring the Yule spruce as the christmas tree is called here and when to dress it varies a lot. Some bring it in already around Advent,dress it as soon as possible and happily throws it out as soon as they can after christmas (usually around the 27th) Others wait to bring it in until the day before christmas which is at the 23d here since our big day is christmas eve and will dress it either late the 23d or more unusual at christmas eve morning. My family brought it in the 13th, the day we celebrate Saint Lucia, for some reason we celebrate a catholic saint in this once strictly Lutheran country 🙂 . WE dressed the tree as soon as it had settled and since we never were able to make it survive for more than a few days and then the needles started to drop we too tossed it outside around the 27th 🙂 🙂 🙂
The old traditions about celebrating christmas were of course very different than they are now, for some reason we now have a big, fat and jolly Santa (we call him the Yule Gnome) giving out presents, yes the kids meet the Yule Gnome on the 24th here. Also he arrives in a sled pulled by reindeers. Back in the days he came to rich people who could afford presents. Usually a small Yule gnome dressed in green and perhaps a red cap came to the homes followed by either a horse pulling a sled or the same small gnome followed by a goat pulling a smaller sled, I guess he came to those with a good economy but never especially rich people 🙂 🙂 🙂 But to be honest he wasn’t the first one to deliver presents, we had the Yule goat before him. One believes that he either was one of Thor’s goat from the old Norse gods but I’ve also heard from one of the old people when I was a kid, back in the stone age that is 🙂 that he was the devil forced to do good one day every year 🙂 🙂
I’ll tell You all about this the closer we get to Christmas 🙂 It will be rose hip soup again today and not too late because I wake up in the middle of night if I have too much 🙂 🙂
Have a great day!
The Cottage by the crane lake. 
I really like the pics from the Agfa. So bright and clear. Of course I have dry eye so it’s probably just my eyes.. My husband hated candles when he was alive as we had an old farm house built around 1860 or 1870. It was added on since then but it was old wood too.. Aren’t you glad you don’t have to drive in snow storms over the holidays? I am. Have a good day.
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Hi Joy!
They are bright and clear 🙂 It was a really good camera with really good lenses but for some reason they stopped making them, instead they seems to have only made point and shoot cameras after that. The same with Kodak actually.
I so understand him! Over here these candles are one of the biggest reasons for house fires in December. I can however use tea lights/ heat candles in tin foil if I let them float around in water 🙂 Magnificent little candles that can heat up an entire room!
I shouldn’t say that but yes I’m very happy I don’t have to do that 🙂 🙂 Well perhaps the times of miracles isn’t over yet and I despite my age actually get a job 🙂 🙂 🙂
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My Mom’s family were Hanoverian (they were from an area close to the seacoast and the border with Denmark.) They came to NYC in the early 1800s and most of their Christmas traditions continued in our family down through into my generation.
They were all originally Lutheran, though like many Hanoverians in NYC they became Episcopalians.
Christmas festivities were so important in my family when I was growing up. We took such care in buying a beautiful, full, Christmas tree and kept it healthy outside until the day before Christmas Eve. We would bring it indoors on the 23rd and set it up in its water-filled holder in the livingroom to give any snow or ice on the branches and needles plenty of time to melt and dry off before decorating on Christmas Eve day.
We enjoyed a leisurely, wonderful breakfast and then we all begin decorating the tree and the house, sometimes happily spending the entire morning and afternoon decorating. Pine garlands went on the fireplace mantel and other decorations were added. We had very old Christmas tree ornaments from our previous generations’ family trees and added special new ones each year too. As a kid the tree lights were multicolored but in my teens we switched to strings of tiny, all-white lights because they were better at highlighting all the wonderful tree ornaments.
On Christmas Day we opened gifts, and had a breakfast feast.
After a leisurely morning and afternoon, we had Christmas dinner in late afternoon. There was a fireplace fire going throughout Christmas Eve Day and Christmas Day.
The tree and ornaments always stayed up through Epiphany, January 6. The next day, everything ‘Christmas’ was dismantled and stored away for another year.
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Hi Denali Sam!
Christmas traditions have a habit of following the family for generations unless suddenly someone marries one with other traditions and that’s when family wars starts 🙂 🙂 🙂
It is noticeable that Your family comes from an area close to Scandinavia since You have the same traditions with the tree 🙂 and we too had very old decorations that had followed the generations, that was until a cat managed to destroy most of them 🙂 🙂 I still have some glass birds that survived though. We seldom bought new ones though since every kid in school made some every year 🙂
Christmas day dinner altered between families but we all preferred to be at my mothers parents, my family has always been loud and messy so family arguments tended to flare up every year 🙂 🙂 🙂
Here we have a tradition to, if we still have the tree standing with at least some needles still on to to take down the tree 20 days after Christmas, I’ll explain about that later 🙂
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I don’t burn real candles either; plus they seem to deplete the oxygen in the room. I do have some of the battery-operated tea lights I use sometimes. Thanks for reminding me to put them out!
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Hi ppekka!
Deplete the oxygen is a non existing problem in a over 100 year old wood cottage 🙂 but I do understand how You mean, after all the fire can’t burn without the oxygen so in modern homes with no draft it must be so.
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You obviously haven’t met my Swedish husband, who considers himself the head of the Swedish Christmas Police and who wanders around the neighbourhood, tutt-tutting at people who decorate early and who thinks that people using coloured lights deserve to have their citizenship revoked and be shipped off to Siberia.
We use coloured lights in my homeland (Australia), or you’d not see them as it is summer there. When I first came to Sweden and asked why there were coloured lights for sale (this was 25 years ago), he turned quite pale… ha, haWe disagree about decorating the tree as well. He likes a minimalist tree, but I like lots of decorations and tinsel. We compromise – each Christmas he thinks there are too many and I think there are too few 🙂
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Hi Marie!
😄😄😄 People can become really annoyed when we brake our traditions 🙂 🙂 especially christmas traditions 🙂
My best friends family, when I was a small kid, always had colored lights both in the windows and the tree and I really can’t repeat whet my mother thought about that 🙂 🙂 🙂 somewhat to what Your husband says but with more cursing and mentions of how their brains worked 🙂 🙂
I’m more like Your husband and tree decorations but my mother and siblings who have trees tends to drown the tree 🙂 🙂 🙂 My mother always looked after a Disney tree, as You know we Swedes are obcessed with Disney. She came close sometimes but was never really happy 🙂
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Around here in Central Virginia, it seems the McMansions (big pricey houses) favor tasteful white lights only. A candle in every window, white lights on the trees. But I grew up in New England and only remember colored lights everywhere. I still go with colored, the more the better. I guess I have no class.
I also use a fake tree because the cats would go absolutely nuts on a live on. I have a huge collection of ornaments of cats, so 2 years ago I bought an 8′ iridescent white tree to make the ornaments really stand out.
As for real candles, you haven’t lived until you’ve smelled the aroma of singed cat tail. I had a taper candle burning in front of me on the coffee table once and my former cat Rex dangled the tip of his tail right in it and didn’t even notice. Fortunately, it only got the fur and nothing important was burned. Now if I use real candles, they are the kind that come in jars so there’s no open flame. The cats seem to have no interest in those after a quick sniff. And I’m careful to make sure they are out and covered before bedtime.
I had never heard of the Yule Gnome, so your posts are good education on Christmas traditions.
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Hi catsworking!
I do like colored lights, for some reason it does feel more christmassy, especially if they are outside because when it’s dark and cold we do need those extra colors.
I like the idea of having a white tree so that the ornaments show better!
I have thankfully not smelled that 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve seen it on tv though and as You say it’s just the tip of the hairs that catch fire, those cats didn’t notice they were on fire either 🙂 Sara the cat/ the monster is now in a phase where she needs to push down everything from tables and windows so that’s another reason to not have burning candles in the home 🙂 🙂 🙂
I’ll tell You more about the Yule gnome closer to christmas.
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