When the going gets tough, Christmas keep coming

Here we are again, Christmas around the corner, faces in brown bags hyperventilating while trying to figure out how they will have time to fit it all in BEFORE that special time called Christmas. Breath in, breath out, it will all be fine.

The answer is, just make a little list, not the wish-list sort of list, but a tick-the-boxes-kind-of-list. I love them; they work so well for me, very satisfying, even if you don’t get past one tick. Still, one tick is one tick off a list…

So, when we stare down Christmas in the white eye, feeling like a bunch of lemmings charging for the edge with no chance to swerve that final drop off the cliff towards certain Christmas impact, my advice is, embrace it!

Back to the list, write down the five most important things about Christmas that is absolutely imperative to the whole idea of Christmas.
My guess is that presents might be on that list. That’s fine; I’m not judging anyone.
Just remember, online shopping as a wonderful thing, go out there and go crazy. Why not spend your dollars at a place where your gift keeps on giving. Head to Oxfam, great gifts, great organisation.
When it comes to presents, and when children are involved, it is easy to overcompensate. Start making a little list (another one!) in your head and figure out who else except you will give that child another item that will gather dust in the near future. All of a sudden you have a whole chain mail, a pyramid scheme in your head! You really don’t have to buy more than two. It’s true, and the chances are your child will end up with 40 gifts regardless.

For everyone else above the age of 18, buy tickets to a show and make an outing of it, together! And if you really can’t stand each other that much, buy tickets to separate shows and avoid any further family feather ruffling. Hot tips, Sydney Festival, theatre or concerts. We all love them.

Socialising, family and food will probably also be on that list. At least I hope so. Family, do what you need to do and don’t whinge about it. Once a year, it can’t be that bad (surely?!). If it is, don’t bother, make changes that works for you, as well as the consequences of those changes. Friends, remember, the world as we know it won’t stop after the 25th, there is always time to catch up after Christmas. Food, very important. As the years goes by, my Christmas foods get more and more creative, and sometimes have absolutely no relevance to Christmas at all, if I remember right, Christmas Eve dinner last year was lamb roast and potato gratin with sparklers in a rice pudding. But guess what, it was a great night, lots of laughter and dancing and happy children, and there was no pressure to judge if I had got it right, because I was so wrong. So for this year, I’ve got open slate for what to dish up on that smorgasbord. It might be a tad more traditional, I feel. But as my husband fondly says, festive Swedish food is almost all the same; it’s potato, fish and meatballs, in different creative variations.

My top 5 list goes as follows:
1. Presents
2. Christmas tree
3. Lussebullar
4. Christmas food to some extent (think, ham, or herring, or salmon in some constellation together with other foods)
5. Family and friends – the number one out of the five

Wishing all and everyone a Merry and Happy Christmas, and just remember, there is more than one way that’s the right way,
just do it your way!

It’s in the Bag

Having spent the last three months traveling and packing/unpacking, squeezing, throwing out, smuggling extra weight into the unsuspecting children’s bags, walking onboard with two pairs of pants, jumper, jacket and scarves just to relieve the bags of some weighty overweight, I feel that bags have been given too much space in my current traveling situation. I keep on fantasising about the trip I’ll make with nothing more than a passport, credit card, a book and a notebook… maybe some clean underwear, 1 change of clothes, a brush, a little wash bag….. a pair of bed socks, another change of clothes, make that three… some high heels (for some special occasion that might arrive out of the blue), a pair of good walking shoes, presents for the family, a cardigan (it might get cold), that summer dress I never wear but I might wear more often somewhere else, a second handbag, a hairdryer and a pair of clogs, sunhat…., correction: sunhats to be safe, nine pairs of jeans…..

Let’s face it, that walk on, walk off trip will never happen. Another utopian dream that has no actual relevance to the way I lead my life, but that’s ok, what’s wrong with arms that drag on the floor and a back that looks like a silhouette of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. So would it be true to say that one’s handbag is a reflection of how we travel in a suitcase? To some degrees I think this might be the case, and this is completely based on hard evidence – my own handbag. In it you will find the usual paraphernalia of diary, wallet, keys etc, but next to that will be a teaspoon-in-waiting for that yoghurt I might buy, or not, an article I feel I will have time to read, sometime, 40 different napkins from 40 different cafes, they will come in use, a pair of lost kids socks (oh, there they are… still!), 1 shoe, just to know the right size should I come across a shoe store with those special shoes my son keeps telling me to look out for, a really funny comic strip I once read and thought is the perfect cheer-me-upperer that might be needed at a crucial moment, and the list goes on and on.

So for this kind of living I need a sturdy handbag that can deal with a lot. I usually lean more towards the ones that are made out of safety belts and carry a stamp of approval from NASA. A handbag is not just a bag; it’s a vital vessel in your life. I don’t change handbags the way some people do, I normally settle on one that I like and then I love it to death. I will use it well beyond what is hygienically appropriate in most Western countries as well as esthetically pleasing to the eye. But they say that love is blind, and in my handbag case, this is definitely true. I keep the image of that first moment of having my new handbag and that impression will stay with me for a long time, perhaps too long, according to some less handbag love struck people. But hey, it’s my bag and I can wear it for as long as I want.

So my newest love is a Finnish beauty by the name of Marimekko Olkalaukku Messenger Bag. It ticks every box. But then again, you can always trust Marimekko to get it right. The amount of stuff I can fit into it is fantastic, and still, it looks in great shape and wears its weight lightly. Deep pockets and a trusted design classic from the 70’s, what more can one ask for. Over the shoulder or across the chest, it’s your choice. And if the Messenger bag isn’t your bag, there is plenty more to choose from, check out funkis for more goodie bags!

Raspberry cordial = liquid gold

There are many ponderings I ponder on a daily basis and one of them is if raspberry cordial is more valuable than melted gold. When you are confronted by the almost vulgar price of 9 dollars a punnet (of 200 lousy grams of half-hearted berries) in Oz, it is easy to see that raspberries might just be berry gold. And I would like to claim that it is, for more reasons than I can really fit in this blog. Let’s start with the name in Swedish….. Hallon. It is a kind of breezy, laissez-faire kind of name that just sits so right on the tongue. Let’s taste it again, Hallon. This delicious berry with such a delicious name also looks so delicious. Plump little red cushions that all hang together in a perfectly perfect shape of berry plumpness. A delight to the eye as well as the tummy. Then I just love the fact that it grows like weed and people just can’t give it away for love and money when the season is right. I remember my mother stalking the neighbourhood to please release her of a kilo or five, only to be met by slammed doors in her berry face, as they probably had just managed to shift their own surplus raspberry stash somewhere else. It is the berry of abundance.

And this is what brings me to the comparison with liquid gold, in two words, raspberry cordial. The cordial sans competition. The nirvana of cordials, the Holy Grail of berry juices, the complete cordial experience. I reckon you haven’t lived if you haven’t drunk some homemade Swedish raspberry cordial. And the key to this love jus is captured in those three words; raspberry, Swedish and homemade. The homemade bit goes like this, passed on down through generations, at least two. Doesn’t sound that impressive but there you go.

Mamma Ingers Raspberry Cordial

Makes 8 litres

5 litres of berries (fresh the best but you could use frozen as well)
3 litres of water
4 kilos of sugar
35 grams citric acid

Powder the citric acid over the berries in a big bowl.
Boil water and sugar.
Pour water and sugar over the berries in the bowl.
Let it rest for 24 hours.
Siv the mix and pour straight into bottles. Keep cool in the fridge.
The cordial can be frozen, just don’t fill the bottle to the top, keep upright.

Make plenty of it, so for the rest of the year, you can dig out the liquid gold from your stockpile, relive the summer hallon feast of flavours and savour those little moments of glory that just makes life worth living. But please, don’t take my word for it, go hunt, gather and make for yourself and you will thank me for it for the rest of your lives.

Midsummer Delights

When the eves of lightness stand long and fair in the Swedish summer it is a good time to be alive. As introspective and melancholic as the Swedish species can be in the darkness of November these characters opens up to the light as a sun-thirsty flower craving some D-vitamins. And before you know it, it is an absolutely bearable lightness of being all around.

What kicks off this metamorphosis can normally be located at the base of the maypole. It is something about picking those wild flowers of gentle colours, alluring fragrances and petal fragility, it is something about the plumpness of the strawberries from the local strawberry farmer, it is something about the singing, the playing of old folklorish songs that continues to be passed down from generation to generation, it is something about the promise of summer delights, the magic of lightness, the shades of blue as the sky very slowly changes its ever-present glory of summer nights. It is something of about the feeling that it gives meaning and adds to the sum of who you are, a sense of belonging, a sense of a precious gift of beauty and a time when nature and humans celebrate unanimously the sense of possibilities in the circle of life, when we know that it won’t last forever, therefore embrace the moment and saviour the sweetness of the here and now.

So join the spirit, raise your glasses, dip that herring, clear your throats, sing from the heart, smile at the summer night, dance like the true hedonist we all are at heart and embrace life to the fullest on these long long days and light light nights of midsummer delights.

No time like ‘filmtajm’

Swedish movies in the eyes of the rest of the world, and including many of our own Swedish species, cannot appreciate, or imagine, Swedish film beyond the Bergman hurdle. With the greatest respect, as I do agree that Mr Ingmar Bergman without doubt was one of the all time best filmmakers, however, we collectively need to acknowledge that there are other Swedish filmmakers worth their celluloid. In a time when you have to stand out in the crowd, Swedish films may not grab the non-speaking audience that easily. It requires an effort and a willingness to seek out something different. The current exception to this sweeping statement is ‘The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo’. Still, but without the best-selling book trilogy, who knows how many moviegoers would have taken their chances on this movie.

So let’s start this movie promotion mini-bonanza at the Sydney Film Festival. The Swedish contribution this year is two short films. ‘Incident by a Bank’ by Ruben Östlund, picked up the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film festival 2010. It will be a little golden nugget of a short film. The second movie is ‘Tusselago’ by Jonas Odell, a lighthearted number where ‘The ex-girlfriend of a West German terrorist, Norbert Krocher, tells her story.’ As I written before, Swedes are jolly people!

So let’s move on to comedy then, shall we. Why not treat yourself to something that I almost guarantee is different to most things you’ve ever seen. This particular thing is called ‘You, the Living’ by Roy Andersson. You either love it or hate it. Further in the comedy cupboard, it is hard to pass on the classic film ‘Four Shades of Brown’ directed by Thomas Alfredson. Judging by the titles I can anticipate a stampede towards arthouse movie rental places such as Dr What in Bondi Junction to find these rare treasures. Otherwise your best chances might be online.

Finally, to go back in history, I would love to see a re-release of a Swedish thriller classic called ‘The Man on the Roof’ by Bo Widerberg from 1976. A true thriller gem that still stands out to this day, many moons later. These little suggestions are only scraping the surface, just a little spot of movies to wet your appetites, but these wintry days are perfect for some movie watching, at home or in the cinema, and be brave, stray away from the big H movies, you might even stumbled upon something unpredictable!

Shady business

As winter comes crawling towards us and we are heading for the darker side of the year the business of shades light up my mind. I could perhaps ponder the bigger issues in life and the world, like riots, economic madness and the uneven distribution of means. But as my gaze wonders upwards towards that special gazing place I feel gives me a certain air of deep contemplation, I can’t help but fix my stare on a naked light bulb swinging in all its nakedness from the ceiling. Oh dear, saving the world just has to wait a day or two while I address the more urgent matters at hand, give that bulb a shade!

An easy way to perk up any kind of space is with a lampshade mit personality.
You can get away with a lot of ‘beyond ordinary’ if there is a shade in the space that steals all the attention. But I’m not talking about the dreary hand-me-downers your might get conned into receiving just because you find it hard to say to your spouse’s aunt that the shade in question shouldn’t have made it into this side of 1960’s. I’m not talking about the kind of shady shades that remind you of a bamboo forest with nicotine stains. I’m talking about the kind of shades where you decide the size, design and fabric. The shade that oozes style and je ne sais quoi. I’m talking about the wagu beef fillet of lampshades.

You might think, ‘Hold your horses O’ shade blaster! Such a shade costs a fortune, it can’t be within the reach of mere mortals!’ Well, yes. That is the most wonderful, under explored little ‘unsecret’ of the shade world. It doesn’t cost an arm or a leg; you don’t have to sell the kids to the white slave trade or shave your head in a fundraiser at the local school. The cost of your lampshade is perfectly affordable. You just have to decide what you want, because there is a smörgåsbord (I know, crazy, but that is the correct spelling!) of options. And as my ‘Scandi’ genes leads the way of style and class, I head to Miljö or funkis for some shady advice on my perfectly perfect lampshades. And I might just solve the world’s problems once my shade shines that special light on me.

The Mother of all Swedish mothers

In these celebratory times of the female ability to reproduce and mother a little critter or two, let’s not hold back in praising these uber-women. Let’s join the gush-party of all mothers and their significance to each and every living homo sapien skipping around this blue-green globe. And let’s, for the hell of it, lift the Swedish mother up above all others for a paragraph or two.

A Swedish mother is like no other. Not only does she work up to, and including, the actual day of giving birth. Not only does she hang around at home until contractions are 10 seconds apart before driving to the hospital, after the popping out, she has a cup of tea, with a bit of toast, before packing her belongings and driving back home within 12 hours of giving birth. With the waving hospital staff quickly disappearing in the rearview mirror. And she’s most likely to cook dinner for the family that very evening. A trooper in plain anglais.

A Swedish mother is also a bit of a unisex mother; she’s capable of most things. Breastfeeding? Sure. Changing a car tire? No problems. Homemade Christmas cards? You bet. Pruning the fruit trees? Goes without saying. You would be hard pressed to find something the Swedish mother isn’t capable of. And this includes pole dancing and yodeling. She is a regular domestic goddess, on top of pulling her weight in the workforce. Further, a Swedish mother can still catch public transport with her child. I know, crazy but true!

Also, a Swedish mother isn’t too precious. Following a fairly no-fuss delivery, she goes on to treat her child with respect and care, but is in general rather matter-of-fact about the whole mothering deal. For example, even though it’s minus 24 degrees Celsius, you will see lots of little babies sleeping rugged up in their prams outside, while the mothers are sitting inside drinking hot chocolate. Why? It’s the attitude that ‘fresh air never hurt anyone’. And guess what, it’s true. A Swedish mother also trust her motherly instinct that a sore throat and a temperature does not need the blessing of a doctor and treated with antibiotics. And yet these children survive. Unheard-of approach in many countries.


So hail to all Swedish mothers and all other mothers out there! Don’t despair though if you haven’t been blessed with a Swedish mother. You can always pick up a surrogate Swedish mother and buy her a present for Mother’s Day; she’ll love you for it. Or buy your non-Swedish mother something Swedish, it might rub off!

And in regards to presents, please spend a lot. We are worth it. If you have a little voice inside you saying, ‘it’s the thought that counts’, don’t listen. Spend big, go that extra mile. Tie yourself in a knot, bend over backwards, shower your mum with presents and flowers because she will LOVE IT.

Light my Fire – the story of a striking match

Some things we take for granted. Like lighting a candle, fire or any other flammable object that needs some flamin’. Ever so often we stumble across a documentary showing us how in the ‘olden days’ humans used flints, glass in sun or any other way worthy of an episode of ‘Man v Wild’. From the comfort of our sofa, lit up by an array of lights, we huff in that special way only comfortable Westerners can, who never huddled around a wet piece of branch trying to cook dinner and keep the wild ones away, and realise ‘’I would freeze to death, develop a taste for raw meat and be eaten by a pack of wolves in no time’. Survival of the fittest.

And then the match came along, and it became survival of the smartest. I’m so pleased the match was invented. What a genius Gustaf Erik Pasch was, may his memory burn forever. Not only a match, but a safety match! The iMatch of matches. It has Sweden written all over it. Flaming, but safe. Herr Pasch certainly had panache.

Often the best things in life seem easy. At least they come across that way. A shoehorn, a doorstop, a rocking chair and a cheese knife are just some of the things that come into my mind.Though the safety match is simple in function, it is the whole science behind it that makes it work. And work. And work. 160 years later, the concept has remained the same. The making of safety matches became one of Sweden’s most successful industries in the 19th Century and into the 20th Century, and probably the most recognised export of Sweden at this time. Not bad for a bit of wood, chemistry and a strike. So next time you’re cuddling up next to your loved on, replace the humming of Door’s ‘Light my fire’ by asking if your darling wouldn’t mind swipe the match against your striking surface.

Re-birch

Let me share with you the joy I recently felt when I rather by complete luck stumbled upon a birch tree in the Sydney wilderness.
There I was, panting away in the sweltering heat, mistaking the inner West for Bali the as the temperature reached indecent heights. I could feel the heat choking me, the asphalt bubbling under my feet; my shoes melting and I started to transform from a cool swede to a withering turnip. I was wringing my top out as the sweat kept weighing me down, inhaled a litre or two of water to refill the reserves while I contemplated the rest of the journey home. All of a sudden, a little breeze came through and I heard a familiar sound, the very distinct rustling of birch leaves that sounds like no other. “No”, I said to my self, “ It can’t be…” I was at this point leaning more towards the explanation that I was hallucinating as my brain obviously was trying to cope with the heat. But then I heard it again. My eyes followed the sound and lo’ and behold, there it was, a wonderful majestic birch tree speaking to me. It gave me such a pang of familiarity and happiness that I mentally started folk-dancing in my regional folkdräkt with my imaginary dancing partner Börje, who’s little funny woollen knee balls kept banging against my strong legs as we swirled around in the polka while the accordion and violin kept the tempo up.

I was abruptly snapped out of my reveries by the children, who asked why I was standing staring at a tree in someone else’s garden. I reluctantly disentangled myself from Börje’s firm hands around my little waist and tried to explain the significance of my birch sighting, already feeling a good 20 degrees cooler. The level of my children’s excitement reflected their lack of knowledge and affiliation with the birch tree, so I had to continue my birch high all by my self. And continue it did. I forgot about the heat, the melting thongs, sticky asphalt et al. Just by seeing this beautiful tree I could will myself to a cooler place, full of refreshing breezes, overpopulated with Nordic dancing-men, and some classic, slightly annoying, folk music played al fresco. So in times like these, what we all need is our own little mental birch tree to keep the heat under control. If you can’t have your own living birch haven, surround yourself with birch memorabilia, such as beautiful furniture from Gamla Lan, homeware with birch details from Funkis, birch fabrics from Chee Soon & Fitzgerald, or opt for the IKEA version where you can get absolutely everything in birch veneer, including the $1 hot dogs.

The Point of the Return

Post-Christmas-sales, post-end-of-year-sales, post beginning of-of-year-sales one can suffer from sales fatigue or plain ol’ confusion of purchases. While returning items, especially at sales times, can be a hard and arduous task. You have to produce 100 points of evidence that you actually purchased the item, this including a thumbprint and your great-grandmother’s maiden name. It also has to be within the time frame of minus 24 hrs and you still have to come up with some strangely suitable excuse why you changed your mind. I break out in a sweat of guilt every time I return something, feeling slightly incompetent that I couldn’t make the right decision to start with, ‘how hard can it be, how can you fail in your judgment of a white T-shirt?’ Maybe it’s just genetic Protestant guilt rearing its ugly head or maybe it’s the queasy feeling of hassling the sales staff, but when returning stuff I always feel as if I’ve borrowed my friend’s favorite item and damaged it, beyond repair.

But for all these slightly anxious ridden returns I have endured through my history of shopping, there is also the antidote that operates under the name of IKEA. Unparalleled in its eagerness for a return, it is the Mecca of Returns, the ultimate meaning of the word Return. I would even go as far as betting my cat’s head that when the English language was in its infancy, men were pondering long and hard if the word for taking things back that you had purchased and for some reason didn’t want any longer, should go under the name IKEA or Return.

Sometimes I have an itch to just buy something at IKEA so I can return it. I know, sick, but true. But I feel I’m making someone happy. And it’s not me (well it is but I’m happy to make someone else happy). Returning your Hejka rocking chair because it clashed with the Kramfors sofa and the Liatorp table is a pure joy. When you show up with your item to return you almost have a feeling that you are giving someone a gift, a very special gift. No questions asked, just hand over the receipt and the box. And if you don’t have the receipt? Don’t stress, there is a special little line with tickets just for you. Now, that’s considerate. No guilt, no explanation, no sweaty palms. I just lift my gaze up to that happy little heart pillow that tells me: ‘It’s OK to change your mind’. It fills me with warm fuzzy feelings, I feel like hugging someone, a pillow, an IKEA staff member or perhaps the person next to me that is queuing up for the bits-missing-give-me-a-new-one-sorry-we’re-temporarily-out-of-stock-desk.