Week 50

Hello Shanon!
I hope you are well! I'm writing this postcard in the early morning hours with the tv on in the background. Today is the Lucia day in Sweden, it's a traditional thing that celebrates light. All over Sweden little girls dress up in white robes with glitter or candle wreaths in their hair (battery driven candles for the little ones and real candles for the older ones), the boys can either wear white robes and pointy white hats or be dressed as santa's helpers or gingerbread men. They then come into a dark room with candles in their hands and sing Christmas songs and special lucia songs. What was on tv right now was a very talented choir of grownups doing the same thing and it's very atmospheric and beautiful. If you google the word "Luciatåg" you'll see lots and lots of examples :)
This week I've started on the Christmas decorations, so now our apartment is much cozier :) We have big paper stars in the windows and glass ornaments in glass jars. The latter is a way for me to use them even though we don't have a Christmas tree. I would love to have a tree but we simply don't have any room in our apartment for something like that. We might, however, get a little Christmas juniper and decorate it as we've done for the two last years :) In my photo this week you can see a glimpse of one of our Advent candlesticks. This one comes from my grandfather and is from the 60's, I'm very fond of it as it reminds me of my grandfather. I just love all the lights during the Holiday season, it's much needed during these dark months - I say months as we always leave the more neutral Holiday decorations out until February or something :)
Have a great week!
xoxo
Moa

Hi Moa!
I thought this week's postcard would maybe be of Bub's crib that we picked up this week, but we didn't get around to putting it together. =) I also thought it might be of some Christmas shopping, a family dinner out, or from a theatre production we were suppose to see this weekend... BUT we had a huge snowstorm and were snowed in for two days!
Nearly 2 feet of snow fell in Minneapolis this weekend (mostly on Saturday, and was the 5th biggest snowfall on record for the city) and the wind blew the whole time, causing huge drifts of snow on the roads, sidewalks, and around our house. I attempted to take a shot out the front door while Ben was shoveling, but I couldn't get the door open! =)
I love snow days like this. It's fun to watch the snow totals climb safely from a warm blanket on the couch. It reminds me of being young and having school canceled. However the snow got so high it covered some our bushes that Ben put Christmas lights on. Poor little bushes! You wouldn't even know they were there! Haha
I didn't really know that the snow was coming, but fortunately, when I was shopping this week I picked up ingredients for Potato Leek Soup (with ham of course), and stuff to make caramels, so we had fun stuff to eat during the storm. On Sunday morning I also made French toast with raspberries. I got carried away putting berries on mine and got a stomach ache from the tartness. Who knew you could eat too many raspberries?! ; )
Happy week 50 Moa! 3 more postcards to go!
xoxo,
Shanon