Christmas in Göteborg

Our past week has been not quite as hectic as the few before it.  On Monday we had FHE at the center.  There weren’t very many of us as the evening started but more came before it was over.  Of course we talked about Christmas and had cake for the fica.  Tuesday was our last meeting with the old institute presidency.  The meeting took about 6 minutes then we had a party  –  drank jul must (pronounced Yule moost)  and ate snacks and gave Oscar a few presents.  We gave him 2 ties and Shara gave him a pair of  bright yellow and blue socks with crowns all over them and an “I love Göteborg” pen.  He leaves Tuesday morning for Toronto.  We will get the new presidency the first of January.   Wednesday Oscar and Josephine came in.  Then Shara wandered in and in 30 minutes there were about 12 YSA in the center playing ping-pong and chatting.  Then they blindfolded Oscar and led him down the street to a farewell dinner.  Thursday was district meeting.  Of course the missionaries all went to Mossin’s for kebab pizza. Then came back to the center and we read and acted out the nativity.  Dad and I were Mary and Joseph with the others being angels, shepherds, wise men, and the evil king.  It was great!!  However, we had planned to have the missionaries at the center on Christmas day for games, etc.  but Dad got a phone call from a fellow in the stake asking if he could come by and get Dad’s key to the center because Erik had told him that the stake single adults (31 to 45) could use the center Christmas afternoon for a social.  After several phone calls and much thought we moved the missionaries to the church and gave him Dad’s keys.   Thursday late afternoon we shopped for Christmas eve and Christmas day.  We were at the first store and the machine wouldn’t accept any of our Visa cards!  We paid with all the cash we had then went to the bank hoping that machine would take our card – it wouldn’t!!  we came home and waited for about an hour for the bank in Spanish Fork to open and Dad got them on the phone.  They called Visa and Visa had put a fraud alert on our card because it had been used the day before in Sweden and they have been overwhelmed this season with card fraud.  After several explanations, Visa lifted the fraud alert and we were able to finish our shopping.  How blessed we are to have so many people watching over us, protecting our money and our good name.  we were so grateful that our bank account hadn’t been emptied by someone and left us stranded here in Sweden!  When we got back to the store the crowd was gone and shopping was easy.  Friday was wash day and we had to be to the Malm’s by 2pm.  We cooked a ham and made a green salad and I curled my hair and we left about 2:15.  Our GPS couldn’t find the satellites and we wandered around the back streets of our neighborhood for 30 minutes before it found them.  Come to discover we had turned right when we should have turned left.  We got to their house just in time to watch  “Kalle Anka”  at 3pm.  It is a show on TV that has been a tradition in Sweden for 50 years.  It is several shorts from Disney animated movies and cartoons featuring Donald Duck (aka Kalle Anka) and friends  with a voice over in Swedish.  It has been the same for all 50 years, but in the last about 5 years they have added 2 shorts from recent movies to update things.  It was so old it was funny.  Dinner was a small traditional julbord  –  meatballs, plain;  tiny hotdogs, plain; ham; boiled potatoes, plain; scalloped potatoes; salad; smoked salmon; hot rolls (should have been hard bread); and Brussel sprouts.  We drank jul must (Dad calls it mule juice)  or water with limes in.  the 4 year old daughter asked why there were  green vegetables in her water!!  After dinner we cleared up then Santa came.  He isn’t our red clothed Santa  —  he wears gray pants and a kind of maroon coat.  He knocks at the door and asks  “are there any good children living here?”  everyone claps and shouts  yes!  yes!  And he comes in with bags of gifts for the family.  The gifts are opened as they are passed out,  he is offered a snack and a nice drink  and he leaves amid more clapping and shouted thank you’s.  he is usually a family friend or even the dad of the family and has been given the gifts before hand by the mom.  Here his official name is Tom Tim.  Then we served the desserts and had a white elephant gift exchange and drove home 2 sets of missionaries and finally got home about 9:45.  Dad had chosen little flashlights for our white elephant gifts.  The 4 year old daughter (Sofia)  picked one and started to cry every time someone looked like they wanted to trade with her!  She would say No!  I need it!  And hide it under her night gown.  Luckily there was another and it changed hands several times before the game was over!

Saturday started about 11:30 and we got home about 7  after food and games and all the missionaries calling home.  We think they enjoyed themselves.  Sunday we drove 20 kilometers to Kungsbacka and attended church there then went home with the retiring institute director and his wife for dinner.  We ate Reindeer!!  In a casserole with bananas.  It was really good.  We got home about 7 and have just been waiting for it to get late enough to go to bed.  We are exhausted!!!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.   We love you.     Mom and Dad,    Grandma and Grandpa,    Elder and Sister Anderson