Green Christmas Tree?

from IJM via Emmas designblogg

There are plenty of reasons why people decide not the bring a real tree into their homes for Christmas.

Luckily enough there are plenty of fun alternatives!

In my opinion, a plastic tree is absolutely out of the question (interesting read: "Is a fake christmas tree the 'green' choice?")

I hope we can all agree with the author: the plastic-is-green rationale has more holes than a watering can!

Project Gingerbread

The Christmas decoration is complete now with our newest addition.

The initial plan was to build a lot higher, but we underestimated the work a little.

Next year though ... ;)

Does anyone know what time does to gingerbread houses? I really wonder how we will find ours when we come back in April ...

Throwing it out before we leave just feels wrong!

E-numbered Creativity

And this is how my village looks after Luqaz and I had some fun with glazing, sprinkles, and -I hardly dare to admit- E-numbers.
I wish I did my research before I ate some of our creations.
According to  wikipedia "food colouring is not really healthy to your body".
Ok, I knew this. I guess I was trying to fool myself into believing the dyes we used were natural ...
But one of the natural blue food dyes is said to be made of butterfly pee (not to mention those made of insects). There really is no upside here ...
We'll just have to stay clear of those chemicals in the future. White glaze is prettiest anyway, right?

Gingerbread Fun!

I'm still a novice in the gingerbread house baking thing ... but since I live in Sweden now and gingerbread house building is like a national sport here, I decided to roll up my sleeves and get going!

Meet my village!

Aren't they adorable?

They even come in black too :) 

Advent Sunday = Yum!

Sweden is a country of many traditions ... and most of them include yumminess.

Last Sunday we were invited to my very first Adventsfika (thank you Jenny & Kalle!), got a taste of a little bit of everything you're 'supposed' to eat and drink at this time of year, and once again decided that there's no place like my new home :)

Luqaz and I finally started baking too! 

We're a bit behind as we don't even have advent candles yet *shame* but as you can't eat candles I'm not too bothered :)

Advent Adoration

Advent Sunday was rather stormy here on the island so I'm glad I took advantage of sunny Saturday to go into town.

I'm so happy that people not only decorate the inside of their houses!

Now we only need a little bit of snow to transform Visby into a true winter fairytale town ...

***

Slushy snow and dreamy thoughts

The snow started melting and beautiful white Gotland is slowly turning back to its less sparkly state.
There's nothing beautiful about brown snow & slush I'm afraid ...
I wouldn't have minded minus degrees & heaps of snow until we leave Sweden on the 1st of Feb to come back to an early spring in March, but I guess you don't always get what you want.

To keep spirits high I selected a few of the winter pictures me and my sis took over the Christmas holidays, most of them taken on the wonderful island of Furillen: