Christmas is coming

decorating pepparkakor

 This weekend our family has got into the Christmas spirit. We have decorated pepparkakor (Swedish spiced biscuits/cookies with cinnamon/ginger and other spices) - this year you can see that my children have liked making flags (maybe a bit of the Olympics influence there) as well as trees and people - we even had a go at turning a pepparkaka man upside down and decorating it as a reindeer!!

experimenting with long exposure and movement

 Our garden looks lovely in the snow with the Christmas tree lights on - I started off taking proper shots of the tree and then did about 20 where I whizzed the camera around on a long exposure. Now I want to utilise the long dark nights with the preschool children - imagine giving them a torch and getting them to make patterns in the air as you take a long exposure photograph - will HAVE to try this tomorrow!!

making Lucia buns

 Once the saffron flavoured sweet bread has risen it is time to make the Lucia buns - the most traditional shape being that shown in the photograph below - however tradition only makes up a part of the experience - once a few traditional buns are made the fantasy flows and there are reindeer heads, plaited garlands, pizzas and hot-dogs to name a few...

Lussebullar

 The Christmas tree has gone up this year again. I have to admit that we have an artificial one - it was bought when the twins were crawling most of the time and I just did not want to be pulling pine needles out of 2 rascals - so the tree we have had for 11 years now - and I guess by us re-using it every year it is a part of a planet friendly approach to Christmas.

the Christmas tree is up

Anyway I am eager to start Christmas activities at preschool and this coming week there will be a series of shorter posts about what we are up to!