Christmas in Finland

I have no idea how to be a better blogger. That is one of my new years goals. So for now it will have to look very disorganized. I wanted to talk about Christmas in Finland. I am not sure we experienced the full Finnish way of doing things, but we did find some fun things that the Finnish do during Christmas. For instance Santa since he lives in Finland comes door to door to visit the children and brings them their presents Christmas eve. The next thing we were able to do was partake in all the amazing pastries. I made rolls a few weeks before Christmas and they actually turned out. (Bread never really works for me). I then thought to try making their cinnamon rolls they do here and they turned out!! So I went to the bread the make called "pulla". Wow I have been impressed with my ability to make these things. I really think it has a lot to do with the altitude here, maybe no humidity(like Georgia), and maybe they have some magic dust they put in their flour here. I do not want this streak to end so until it does I am going to continue making breads and pastries until my luck runs up.

Steve came home one day with a Christmas tree and surprised us!! It was beautiful and I wish I would have gotten a better picture of it before it died. I hope to one day grow a green thumb, but this year we were only able to keep our poor tree alive for about a week.

I felt sort guilty that the Christmas tree was cut down just for us to only survive a week, so I thought what could we do with it to show how much we appreciated. I looked up online and was able to find a potpourri for pine needles. We boiled them and let them simmer and the whole house smells like a Christmas tree. Very lovely.

I know my pics are random but hopefully you see why I posted most of them for the Christmas blog. Santa is cute here he likes to dress a little old fashioned and his reindeer go wherever he goes. We went out for a night down town during the holidays to see the lights in Helsinki and came upon the Lutheran Church around it was little shops where we got hot chocolate and Steve bought a reindeer brats. Looking forward to another Christmas here and hopefully we will see some snow next time.

I should probably mention what Steve and Josie are doing with the telescope. Josie was asking for a telescope all year and Santa had a very hard time tracking one down in Finland apparently they don't have many here, but he found one and when there is not a cloudy night you can see Josie looking through her telescope. I love it when they use the things they are given. Ez loved his train he got and knows exactly the right noises to make while it goes along the track. Every year seems like I am blessed more and more and am grateful to be sharing this experience with my family.