If you can't beat em join em!

Sunrise at 11am

There is no way to avoid the Christmas spirit here and last Friday morning I awoke to the sound of Christmas carols.  The school children were all in a procession on the path to the graveyard for the lighting of the cross...a candle is passed from child to child until it reaches the cross which is then lit up and stays alight 24/7 until the christmas period is over.  Here is a little video I took so you can hear what I heard.  It was around 8.30am and still very dark.

It has been a hectic week, last Thurs Olga, Henry and I went to Akureyri to buy some Christmas lights and do a bit of a Christmas food shop.  I have never put up Christmas lights before, apart from on the tree and it has been quite a few years since I have gone all out for Christmas. I made a big effort when my children were young but once I was separated and the children spent every Christmas with their father...there seemed no real point and I was also quite over the commercial hype of it all. But this year after 14 years I do get to have Christmas lunch with all my children and am getting into the spirit of it all.  I refuse to spend good money on decorations (except fairy lights) and have always preferred to make my own...I still have a few things that I can pop around the rooms and pulled out a bunch of Christmas jointed teddies and stars that I made one year...even I am quite amazed that I made these!

  

Just about everyone puts up lights in and outside their homes here...so when we went looking for lights Olga and I were bedazzled by the huge selection available.  This shop is a large hardware, a bit like Bunnings but there was a huge section dedicated to lights plus heaps of other Christmas stuff scattered around the store.

I only wanted fairy lights for the windows which I thought would be an easy decision but oh my goodness there are dozens and dozens of variations to choose from.

 I ended up with some that could be joined together to hang down from the top of the very long window I have in the stairwell.

Plus some for the four windows in the lounge and dining room. The stars and arch are courtesy of the Old Post House. Just with fairy lights it looks more Christmassy than anything I have ever had before, I certainly won't need much else.

We have had a bit of a blizzard a few days ago and there is plenty of snow around with temperatures reaching -16°. It is the strangest of feelings when you wake up and the windows are completely covered in snow and you cannot see outside at all...it makes me appreciate all the more the fabulous views I have.

 

The door to my balcony will not open and the snow nearly reaches to the top of the railing in parts

Since then the last couple of days have been magnificent with temperatures around - 6° or -7° with no wind just crisp coolness...I hope it is like this when my children arrive.

 School children snow boarding down the slopes

Snow heart

I slipped over on the ice last Sat morning and twisted my ankle and knee.  It would have been ok if I had stayed off it but instead I chose to do a spot of geocaching with Patricia, Bjarki and Annabell (that will be another post) and by the end of it the knee had swollen and become quite painful and I was having a lot of trouble walking.  I became quite incapacitated for a couple of days and just had to keep off it but all is fine now and it gave me the chance to put a bit of a dent in my Christmas knitting projects. 

However because we went geocaching we missed the lighting of the Christmas tree in my front yard so I have no pics of this years festivities...just one of the end result which is this!