christmas eve's eve

It's the night before the night before Christmas.

Swedes celebrate xmas on its eve. In doing so, "Christmas" becomes the 24th rather than the 25th. So the big day is tomorrow (or --looking at the clock --today.)

Stockholm has been abandoned to hometowns and country homes by a large chuck of its population. There's an eerie emptiness in the streets echoing the absence of cars and people normally milling about in the evening.

We're going to have our first attempt of cultural meld this xmas. Julafton (Christmas eve) will be celebrated in traditional Swedish style. We'll be gathered at my sister-in-law's--my MIL and my SIL's FIL as well. At 3pm the TV will be tuned to SVT to watch the hour-long medley of Disney that a generation of Swedes have grown up watching. There was a time when that was all they got of Disney--all year long. After the program we'll eat the assortment of herrings, ribs, ham, meatballs and potatoes and then...someone will have to "go out and buy the newspaper" and in that person's absence --Tomten (Santa--though literally translated --the elf) will come.

Tomten delivers the presents, spends a moment and moves on. Then the ritual of present distribution begins. And it's orderly in our family. One present to one person who reads the rhyme if there is one (it's a 50/50 chance with us), makes a guess, then opens the gift and passes it around. Then the next present and so on. Present opening can literally last hours.

So here's our cross-cultural conundrum. How do we harmonize the visit of Tomten with the night-time magical delivery of Santa on his sleigh and his eight reindeer?

I so want to preserve the magic of "waking up to Christmas"--when weary-eyed children fight to beat the sandman to see Santa make the drop. Only in the wee hours of the morning when they wake do they see that they've missed him, but he's kindly left a collection of requested and coveted gifts.

This year the story is going to be:

As Santa is from Sweden (and the north pole) he starts off here. But then he has to go off to deliver presents to all the rest of the kids in the world. Since we're American too, those presents get delivered at the same time, i.e. in the middle of the night (he's got quite a lot of presents to deliver.)

We'll see how the story gets swallowed and digested tomorrow and the day after. This year is a big one for the Bean. He's giving away his pacifier to Santa in exchange for a Percy train. It could be a long night Christmas eve.

charlie brown xmas tree

My mother told me that the deal she struck with my father when they married was that they'd always have a "real" Christmas tree. He hasn't had to hold up his end; she just goes and buys one.

Like it or not, you become your parents in one way or another. You start telling that dumb joke or worse, you start using the same "I told you so" retorts. I have always honored the "real" Christmas tree requirement.

This year I did my mother one better. My tree is not only "real" --it's alive in a pot complete with roots. It's a mini dwarfed by the neighboring palms in our window, but it's as real as real gets and now lit and decorated.

My plan is to keep it alive and make it a Christmas guest year in and year out. I hope I can keep it alive longer than the orchids we get as gifts. Orchids never grow old in our care.

Merry Merry.