I survived Christmas 2009, part 1

It's finally time to take a deep breath and let life return to normal. Sort of. I'm in Christmas recovery mode now. After a month of hectic activity and preparations, it's over. We're unexpectedly kid free for a couple of days, so we've spent the time painting the inside of the barn/new garage.

In Sweden, the Christmas season starts with the first of Advent, which this year was the last Sunday in November. That's when the Christmas decorations are put up, and I actually did this on schedule. The first weekend in December, I was in Berlin (more on that later). From the moment I got home, I felt I was playing catch up, both with work and with all the Christmas stuff: cards to write and mail, presents to order, packages to send, cookies to bake, presents to wrap, etc. Then there's all the kid stuff too: cards to make, gingerbread house to assemble, Lucia concert at school, the Lucia/Christmas concert at the church, the violin concert with the music school, and finally the last-day-of-school show (canceled due to snow). That's right, snow! We got plenty of it, and we even had a white Christmas.

We had a real snowstorm on the 18th with over a foot of snow and plenty of wind to blow it into drifts. My husband left for work and made it only about 50 meters before getting stuck in a drift that was deeper than the car. Shortly thereafter, our neighbor came to plow us out and helped pull the car back onto the road. He decided to work from home, but our daughter really wanted to make it to the last-day-of-school show and party, so he drove her to school in the Suburban. Only 2 teachers and about 5 kids had made it to school, so they sent everyone home.

The snow was about two feet deep by the time the snow let up on Saturday. We walked to a party at a neighbor's house, and it was absolutely magical. It felt like walking through a Christmas card. It snowed on and off for the next few days, but it also got warmer, so the snow compacted, and it never got any deeper. On the 23d, it started to thaw. My husband likes to wait until the 23d to do the tree. By then, I was too busy cooking, so he took our daughter to pick out a tree. There were only 4 trees left at the lot, so she got to pick one out, and we got a great deal on it. However, we had so much to do that we decided to wait with bringing the tree in and decorating it.