We had a nice Christmas dinner, went for a long walk and decorated, no Christmas tree but many other plants to light up with the small red and silver balls, or whatever you call them in English. Two thirds of them on places completely visible, one third hidden. Last year he found the last hidden one around midsummer. Also gift exchanges of course. I got some very useful and nice things this year. My father gave me a book called Shantaram, as it is over 900 pages it took me a long time to read but it was very special and I very much recommend it. It is a man from New Zeeland writing about some years of his life that he spent as a criminal in Bombay. It described an amazing and terrifying India that I had no idea existed. Do read it, it's amazing. I also got a small lamp that you can actually attach to a book, allowing you to read even when it's dark. Mainly a fun thing but also useful.
From my mother I got many useful clothes, the best probably being my slippers, my old pair were broken since half a year back or so and I love slippers at home. I also got some cookies and long underpants, also very useful. Lastly I got a small hippopotatus, which i collect ever since my first cuddly toy was a hippo, not a teddy bear.
On the 26th there were more gifts, I spent it with my relatives in Uppsala and we played game similar to secret Santa. In the game everyone (30 for us) brings a gift and put it under the Christmas tree without any name on it. Then we take small papers with numbers from 1 to 30 out of a box. Number 1 starts with choosing one of the gifts under the tree, then opens it and shows everyone. next person is number two, he can either pick a new gift or steal the one number 1 had, in which case number 1 gets to pick again, and so on. I had number 22 and aimed for a champagne bottle that number 10 or so got but that kept jumping around, it was quite popular. I stole it and got to keep it for like 3 numbers, then it was stolen from me so I had to pick a new one. I ended up getting some chocolates, one of them salmiak sadly, which I don't eat.
Still, the main fun is the actual game, not the gifts you get and while I would have liked the champagne for new year it was hardly a luxury one so I could buy my own if I wanted we had a price limit of 10 euro for the gifts. I ended up trading the chocolate for some kind of luxury toothpaste, very useful as I actually only brought along an almost empty tube of toothpaste by accident and while I can't say that I care thaaaaat much about the taste of toothpaste it absolutely doesn't hurt that it takes good, which it does. I spent the night at a nearby hotel and left for Stockholm again in the morning on the 27th. When I got to central station and then did the 15 min walk to my house I immediately went to bed and slept as I had been completely unable to do so during the night. For some odd reason I've been having trouble sleeping for the last two or three weeks. I survive it but it isn't very nice, I hope it passes.
I spent new year at a friends place in Stockholm just having a good time watching the fireworks and talking to each other. I don't really like fireworks and would rather see a laser show like some cities in Sweden organized, mainly due to how much it terrifies some animals. But well, when they are still there and I can't really stop it i might as well enjoy it, it does look beautiful. After watching the fireworks some of us went to the city center and to a place to celebrate a bit with some other friends as well, it was just a night of a lot of great fun. I think i went to bed at around 06, then I slept very well.
After new year I almost immediately spilled water on my computer, which made a lot of the keys stop working. I left it upside down to dry for two days after taking the battery out and it helped a bit but many keys are still not working. I'm doing alright with the keyboard on the actual screen but it takes longer of course, so I'd rather have a normal keyboard, especially for writing longer texts. This post is written on a borrowed computer. So that was the slightly bad start, except for that all is good so far this year, yesterday the volunteer Swedish for immigrants classes started again after a Christmas break, which was good fun. Especially when we were talking about greetings in Swedish and one of the learners in my group said the Swedish phrase "tjingeling", which is a joking way of saying goodbye. Another one in the group heard kyckling when he said it, which means chicken. For a second thought that saying chicken was a way of saying hello in Sweden (incorrect). We also talked about the Swedish character Pippi Longstockings, in Swedish "Pippi Långstrump". The one in my group managed to say Pippi Långstring instead, which means "Pippi long string", as in string underwear. Well, that's this year so far, we'll see what happens in the rest of it. Hope you readers also had a good time to finish last year as well as a good start to this new one.
The picture is of the little snow that we finally got in Stockholm just today, unusually little winter so far.