Första advent

Last weekend was the first of advent, and for most of us thats no big deal at all, but here its a BIG thing (kind of). We decorated the house. Its strange, swedes are not like religious, but you can see a manorah in every window, and every house house a advent reef and like stars in the window. its weird to me because they mix the religions when they dont practice a religion. weird. also strange to me that its ok to have like Santa clauses at school and manorahs and things like that. then we went and fikad at mormor morfars house. we drank glögg! its like a hot spiced wine thing, you take little sips of it and put raisins and almonds in it, its pretty good. we eat like sooo much gingerbread its going to start coming out of my ears! and of course we also drink julmust! its like coke but with some different spices or something, its really good, its weird to them that we dont have like a typical christmas drink, well i guess egg nog, but yeah. then for breakfast we had Christmas porridge, yeah it was ok. and at dinner we had the whole family over and were eating, and then they would all break out and start singing Christmas carols. it was so funny, i would just sit there and smile. then after every song you skål (cheers) it was so different. that was basically last weekend, i am starting to notice some cultural things now, which is really fun! on thanksgiving i made a feast. Juliana and Phil came over and we all helped cook the meal. it turned out really good. like for our first time and none of us being able to cook, it was good! my family really like the sweet potatoes and marshmallows, that was good. then rugved and hannah came over and celebrated thanksgiving. it was really nice and i felt like i had a new family :) i was proud of myself, even though i couldn't find any sort of pumpkin to make a pumpkin pie :( its been snowing alot here and has been really cold, like one day i walked to school and it was -19 out side! i froze to death, i was seriously considering rolling in a ball on the side of the road and dying hahaha. not really, but it was cold. but i have been sledding and thats always fun. oh i get to be Lucia for something on st. Lucia day!! im really excited for that! i move families on the 28th :( i get to live with my counsler at his house (where i went hunting) for 2 weeks, so that should be fun, but i dont want to leave my family now! but now i get to see more culture and stuff. yep there you go.