Sunrise: 9:38
Sunset: 13:27

I made a quick trip to town late this morning, and on my way home I was driving into the sunset, though it was only just past noon. As I type this it’s 3:30 in the afternoon and it’s been pitch dark outside for an hour or so. These last weeks before Christmas break Lydia goes to school in the dark and comes home in the dark. It’s a good thing they have them outside quite a bit during the school day; otherwise she’d scarcely see daylight for the entire month of December. We get so little sun up here during the winter (in all of Sweden, actually) that we have to give our little ones vitamin D drops to make sure they don’t get rickets.

All that said, I don’t much mind the winter darkness. It does get to me a bit on those overcast days when it seems hardly to get light at all, but it’s not as hard on my system as the months of constant daylight that we get in the summer. It’s actually rather cozy, the darkness, especially with all the lights and candles most people have in their windows. Besides, it doesn’t last very long, really … it’s been only about six weeks since we set the clocks back (which is when you really start to notice the darkness), and we’re only a week away from the Solstice, when the daylight hours start to increase pretty quickly. It’s seemed to go even more quickly for me this year since we had such a nice long fall and have had snow only for two or three weeks. Even now there’s only a thin layer of snow on the ground, as opposed to the mountains and mountains we usually have by this time. I know that’s a disappointment for a lot of people here, but as for me, I could really get behind a winter like this.

I wanted to post some more pictures from Lydia’s Lucia pageant on Tuesday night, but when I downloaded them I found that all the ones I took of Lucia herself were blurry, red-eye messes. Too bad, too, because it’s really a nice sight with all the candles in the darkness. We did videotape most of the program to send home to my mom, and I think she’ll like seeing it even though she won’t be able to understand what anyone is singing or saying. Truth be told, I don’t understand the words to most of the songs myself–not only are they sung in Swedish, but grade-school choirs aren’t exactly well-known for their precise enunciation–but I still think it’s fun. I also got a nice picture of Farmor holding Tage up to see the singers–as you can see, though, he was far more interested in all the lights than in the singing.