First Advent

The first Sunday in December has arrived and in Sweden, this is called First Advent.  This is the unofficial start to the Christmas season and although decorations and masses of shoppers have started to appear prior to this, they begin in earnest today!  We were waiting for Thanksgiving to be over before we put up our decorations and since we didn't celebrate Thanksgiving until yesterday, that meant that we were out with those masses of people today, buying our own Swedish Christmas decorations.
The most important decoration seems to be the adventsljustakar, or the advent candlesticks.  These help to provide some much needed light to our dark days and nights but also represent the countdown to Christmas.  Here, they come in many different styles but are primarily a triangle with five candles that look sort of like an odd menorah.

Another important Christmas light, is the paper star that is hung in windows.  These have an electric light inside and represent the Star of Bethlehem.  This was a German tradition that the Swedes adopted somewhere along the way.

Advent calendars are everywhere with all sorts of little treats, chocolates, toys, etc to mark down the days to Christmas.  Instead of a calendar, we chose an Advent candle instead to burn a little each day for our countdown.

Our building from the outside at night, our flat is the 3 windows on the bottom

Another must have in any Swedish home at Christmas is the tomte.  This hairy little guy is the Swedish version of a Christmas elf and sort of equivalent to our Santa Claus.  He can be found EVERYWHERE in various colors and clothes but always with the long beard and hat covering his eyes.  I love him!

We also put up a "Christmas tree".  Swedes use trees just like ours back home but we chose a very small version due to the size of apartment, the available storage space for the rest of the year, and the fact that we won't actually be here for Christmas!

And, even though almost all of the Swedish Christmas decorations are secular and organized religion does not seem to be play a large role in the life of an average Swede, we also put up our creche that was very thoughtfully given to us by a group of friends before we left Batesville.  Handmade in Oldenburg, IN and we love it!

After decorating the house, Tabitha and I headed out to old town to do some Christmas shopping and to enjoy the Christmas market and it's views and hot chocolate!

A gorgeous evening!