One Christmas less to enjoy

One Christmas less to enjoy. This one was rather nice, not too full of traditional things. First we visited S's father and his family in some southerh suburb of Tampere. People do live in amazing places, where I could not ever live. They served excellent mushroom-salad and some interesting stories about Urpo Lahtinen, the legendary publisher, art collector, rally driver and whatnot. Much more informative stories than those in the book by Jyrki Hämäläinen. That book is rather bad, not really worth reading. Someone should write a proper biography of Mr. Lahtinen.

On Christmas eve, we had semi-traditional lunch in Epilä, in my mother's house (where I also lived 9 years): ham, salmon, potato and other puddings etc. After which we visited my cousins in the countryside, some graveyard (in Finland, Christmas eve is the best day to visit them even though it is usually way too cold. But seeing thousands of candles burning at the graves is rather humbling, too). And then, later, we went to my brother's garage for a few beers and to watch some Lord of the Rings.

On Saturday, we drove to Helsinki by my brother's new Audi 100 S4, a really nice and fast car. Or I drove south. We then spent the evening at S's sisters place eating, chatting, just having good time.

Today, sleeping way too long, listening to the new Tom Waits CD, finalising the packing.

For an enlightening Christmas fairytale, please read the story about a fool king wasting his great country away. And I am moving to his country...

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs December 2004".