Sunday, December 13, 2009

Celebrating the Season

The Swede and I spent the past 24 hours with his folks in Kungsängen and it was action packed!  First, we swung by the town center where we met Santa Claus (Swedes call him Tomte, but I know better) and I embarassed the family.  Fortunately for them I was feeling extra sophisticated and elected not to ride the ponies.

Next, it was back to the flat for some pepperkakor, lussekatter and glögg (gingerbread, saffron rolls and mulled wine, if you know better, like I do) and a little tree-trimming.

Please look at how cute The Swede already was as a small child in the picture over Papa Swede's head!

Mama Swede created something amazing for dinner:  smörgåstårta (or sandwich cake if Americans were smart enough to have such a thing).  Inside of this roe-, egg-, shrimp-, tomato- and cucumber-topped tour de force are four layers of various fish spread between two loaves worth of sliced bread.  Whoa. 

And after dinner I taught them my favorite card game, Kings in the Corner, and nearly tore the family apart.  I feel it is fair to say that they were rather competitive.  Papa Swede won six times in a row after a couple of fast victories from Mama Swede in the first few rounds.  Who knows what's going down in that house now that the company has left. 

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