Santas from America

This Christmas some santas came over from America and performed advanced figureskating moves on our local skating rink!

Santa James:


Santa Warrick:


Santa Warrick and Santa Julie:

Family Update

Rhiannon has become much more aware of her surroundings lately. While she little more than existed before, she now follows us with her gaze and when spoken to she gives us the most radiant smiles you can imagine. I haven't been able to catch one of those smiles on camera yet since they are so distracting that I forget to take the picture!



The other day Henrik told Lorienne and I that one time when he was going home from "pretend Work" he saw two dark stars with racoons in them. He really meant racoons too because he translated it to Swedish and used the term "tvättbjörn" which means exactly that!
While it's occasionally too cold to be outside for very long you have to invent things to do inside instead so why not become a cat who likes hiding in paper packets?

Old Moon

Another image using an overlay technique.
This plot or piece of land in Kyrkås has been in the same family since November 1710. That's almost 300 years ago and some of the buildings on it were erected even earlier.

Lucia

Every year on the 13th of December Sweden celebrates the saint Lucia, you can read about her here.
The reason we celebrate this saint is all but forgotten, but it's something school kids do and they dress up in white robes, hold candles or stars on sticks and sing Christmas carols. All the parents and friends come to watch and listen. Actually it isn't reserved for schoolkids and has become something of a beauty contest outside of the schools.

As far as the school celebration goes, it involves both girls and boys. Traditionally the boys dress up in white robes and hold stars mounted on sticks and the girls wear white robes too, but also wear tinsel in their hair and hold candles. The main character Lucia was always played by a girl with candles in her hair, but these days of the Swedish liberation of the sexes, a guy will do just as well. There is a debate about this in the media lately.

I remember celebrating the same tradition in the Swedish school in Botswana where I grew up. I found it a bit troubling as I grew older since the boys not only wear robes but also a cone shaped white hat. I can think of a very prejudiced American group who dress very similarly so prancing around singing songs in a foreign langauge and lighting candles may not have been as appreciated by the local Africans as it was by the proud Swedish parents.
What troubled the girl playing the main character Lucia was usually how to get the candle wax out of her hair later.

The images below are from the "Lucia" celebrations in the village we live in. Lucia's candles were fortunately battery operated.







As for the young Santas, this is a confusion between the nordic mythological gnomelike creature and Santa Claus. Not sure how the gingerbread men at the back got involved.
These little guys reminded me of the saying: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

Fog

As long as "Storsjön" (or the "Great Lake") hasn't frozen, the cold brings about a thick fog from time to time which dresses everything in a frosty lace. It's often so thick you can look directly at the sun without hurting your eyes.
It reminds me of a sandstorm, but without the wind and ice crystals replacing the sand. The fact that it was -20 C today takes away the last of the likeness to a sandstorm I guess.
The image below: A sunny day in Lit if the fog over the unfrozen river hadn't erased the sun almost completely.
Those petrol prices look good, but unfortunately I think the sign was broken. Perhaps it suffered from frostbite?



The central heating plant in Östersund works hard trying to ward off the cold for the households connected to it. I feel there is a global warming issue somewhere in this image.

Moonlight

Since it's impossible to take a photograph of the moon and still keep the landscape correctly exposed, the way to do it is to take two photographs and use an overlay technique. Basically that means you blend the two photographs into one, something which my camera can do automatically.
I used a 3 min exposure for the house and trees and a 1/320 sek exposure for the moon itself. I also used an 80mm lens for the house and changed to a 200mm for the moon. That way I could enlarge the moon and create a more dramatic effect.

Summer Dreams

-16 C and it's dark by 3:00 PM. It feels as if we're living in a freezer at the moment. Winter may be beautiful but I just had to add some summer photos today.

Winter Wonderland

On days like this I have to admit that winter isn't all bad. Lorienne and I felt as if we were living in a Christmas card today and I only hope it stays more or less like this while our visitors from USA are here.
Sparkling white snow wherever one looks. Buildings and trees look like pencil sketches on paper which would be completely white if it wasn't for the hint of pink making up the colour of the sky.



Oh, and Henrik went skating again. He will soon be better at it than his Mom and Dad.