Lappi

Talvimökki: From Helsinki/Lapland 04-05

Lappi is the Finnish name for their part of Lapland, the home of the Sami and their reindeer herds.  We're off there for the New Year and a couple of weeks of snow, skiing (both flavours), huskies, reindeer, sauna, ice fishing, kammos (that's the winter darkness) and hopefully the northern lights - we'll skip the wolves, bears and lynxes thanks. 

I imagine it will be a tad more authentic than the West Midlands Lapland...

25 - Joulupäivä

our christmas e-card to you all

meidän joulun s-korttin kaikille

Now stop reading this blog and go play with your new toys...

24 - Joulupöydällä (On the Yule table)

From Finland winter 06/07

Today is Christmas Eve. Which in Finland, unlike Britain, is the main event - ruokaa, joulupukki, lahjoja (food, santa, presents) ...

In the morning, it is traditional to eat riisipuru which is salted with 'lucky' almonds for the unwary. Then (if you have one) perhaps a morning sauna to get relaxed (and clean) for the day's 'exertions'.  The visit to the cemetery to place candles on family graves is perhaps for me the strangest thing of the day, with no similar tradition at home; traffic jams forming at the main cemeteries, directed by police make the whole thing slightly surreal, although the sight of the snowy graveyard filled with candles in the early darkness is eerily pretty.

By tradition dinner can start when the first star is in the sky (not sure what you do if it's cloudy) and the birds have been fed. After dinner, joulupukki and his tonttu may visit to deliver the presents... although strangely ours are already under the tree. Hmm.

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So then to the groaning christmas pöytä, from which one can take food for the rest of the afternoon and evening. But how does it compare to (tomorrow's) traditional British christmas dinner?  Last year we even managed to have both (with my family in UK) so here are both for the curious of both nations...

Suomen joulunruokaa: From hölynpöly

Starters

Suomi: Lax (smoked salmon), Silli (Herrings in various sauces), Fish roe

UK: Scottish smoked salmon & champange

Suomi: Lutefish (pre-soaked in lye... probably an aquired taste)

UK: nothing comparable

Suomi: Joulukinkku - the huge christmas ham: cooked overnight, slavered in mustard and breadcrumbs

UK: Turkey - huge, golden, with fragrant stuffing (the older British tradition is actually Goose, but I've never eaten that)

Suomi: Laatikkot - different casserole 'boxes' of carrot, sweetened potato, turnip and liver

UK: Roast potatoes, parsnips & carrots

Suomi: Rosolli - beetroot and mixed vegetable salad, Lingonberry and cabbage salad, Mushroom salad

UK: Brussel sprouts

Suomi: Pate, meat aspic, smoked reindeer.

UK: Liver pate, pressed tongue, stilton

Suomi: Gingerbread cookies, Joulutorrtu.

UK: Mince pies, christmas pudding, trifle

And to drink: Glögi, wine, beer, milk, and coffee (of course - Finns start to get the shakes if they don't get coffee every few hours...)

UK: Wine, beer, fruit juice, mulled wine, coffee

Later: 

2 burana and a lie down...

2 neurofen, the Queens Speech and a lie down...

A British Christmas plate: From hölynpöly

Hyvää joulun ruokaa!

23 = 1+4+5+9+12+15+19+20+21+22

No, no, no - you were supposed to deliver presents in a white van. Pic via.

Lacking a sleigh, we have been playing 'white-van-mies' today... er, I mean Sunday (which was no. 21 in our virtual advent calendar), and which will have been two days ago when this gets published. By which I mean we have been driving around in a valkoinen paketti auto delivering little bundles of joy (no - not them, it didn't have a red cross and blue flashing lights) to various people. I refer you to exhibits 15, 19 & in one case 20 to a surprised Bore . In return we have consumed tea, coffee and soft-boiled eggs - as well as the more seasonal 4 & 9.  During these visits we talked about 21, 14, 22 & 5 (not looking promising), received 19, 15 & 12 (in kit form!) and observed 20, 11, 10, 7 & 16. Ymmärrättekö?

22 - Joululaulut II

More impenetrable Finnish 'christmas songs' for you ulkomalainen I'm afraid... this time from Vesa-Matti Loiri. 

Another week - another (in theory) suomen joulu flavoured musical odessy. VML ('Vesku') is a bit of an institution here, an actor an singer with a deep, gravely voice and dramatic/emotional delivery, who scored nil point at the 1980 eurovision song contest.  Musically... well let's just say at one point we were dangerously close to the theme from 'Bergerac': accordion, bass, and Mark Knopfler-esque guitar nooddling. So not really my cup of tea, coffee, or any other hot beverage (although he does have a fine voice, and I did like the use of a modern, amplified kantele in one song). So mielenkintoista...  is the best I could do when asked afterwards what I though. It's a shame that he didn't have the more orchestral backing shown in the video, because the setting would have suited it.

Oh yes, the setting - the reason I didn't put up to much resistance to seeing either him or the diddily-dingers last week. In a word: Aalto.

VPL VML was performing at Finlandia Talo Aalto's 'white phase' carrera-marble-clad concert hall which, although we had a lightning tour a few months ago, I wanted to experience in operation; and Rasvaton (whatever) were at Aalto's 50-year old 'red-phase' Kulttuuritalo - which won for me in terms of the flow of the architecture, clever canopy, and intimacy of the trademark asymmetric fan auditorium.  I could write lots more on both, but it has been all said before better than I could...

21 - Talvipäivän Seisaus

'Wintersunset' © Mikael Rantalainen

Aurinko nousee: 09.24

Aurinko laskee: 15.13

So today, the winter solstice or shortest day (in the northern hemisphere) the sun is (barely) above the horizon for a mere 5 hours and 48 minutes in Helsinki, more than 2 hours less than in London. Even at noon the sun is only 6.5º above the horizon, so usually still behind buildings and trees, even when it isn't cloudy.

Some great photos by Mikael Rantalainen of Finnish winter sunrise/sets can be found here. Makes me want to get my camera out and look for likely spots...

Strangely (as you may have learnt in your school geography lessons) the sun continues to rise later (by a few minutes) until about the 6th of January even though the days start getting longer, because of the earths inclination and elliptical orbit.

Yule (Joulu), the pre-christian celebration of the winter solstice has been long absorbed into first the christian and now the the pseudo-christian commercial holiday we have now (although a few days later) and in the celebrations of the new (calendar) year.

1000/100

Sometime today we should get our 1000th visit (according to Sitemeter anyway, as we are on 998 as I write this) - well if you are not all too busy buying your christmas turkey/joulukinku and last minute gifts that is... 

Of course we haven't really had 1000 visitors in the last 6 months (please file under lies, damned lies and statistics - I'll explain in the new year sometime) and I doubt you've been here more than once a day each (once a week? once a month? Gee - I wonder why we bother sometimes...) which would mean we would have at least 7.6 readers at the most anyway. 

I was hoping this would also be our 100th post  - but too many people are googling himmeli and joulutortu at this time of year, so the thousand has come up a few early on the 95th post. So much for synchronicity - maybe I should change the title to 998/95.

Kiitoksia kaikille...