Christmas Goes On and On

Christmas is a month long celebration here. Advent candles start showing up in windows, Christmas trees are lit in neighborhood parks, people start having glögg parties and saffron buns are everywhere.

Two weekends back we went to a Christmas market at Skansen an open air museum in Stockholm. Skansen is pretty impressive on it's own without the holiday flair. They have over 150 traditional homes, schools, buildings that they moved to the island from various parts of Sweden. Most of them date from the 18th and 19th centuries. There are traditional craftsmen who throw pottery and practice glass blowing. And it addition to all this they had a big Christmas market with traditional booths, dancing and, of course, LIGHTS! It was actually pretty cold and foggy, but the lights made eerily beautiful. I felt like I was in a Charles Dickens novel. In Sweden.