Christmas in Finland

I left Vancouver exactly one week ago on Sunday and arrived in Finland on Monday. All the flights were on time and the whole trip went very well. Tomorrow I head back to Vancouver and if everything goes well I'll be there around 4PM on Monday. The week has been busy but also a hella lot of fun! Almost felt like no time had passed at all since I left. Except for the weather.                                                                                

The YVR Airport

Free wine on the plane!

 Felt strange to be back in my old room. Everything was exactly as I left it.

BTW Santa Claus you can retire now.. I've got this!

 On Tuesday morning me and my mom went shopping to Old Town Porvoo.

Porvoo Old town

Café Helmi

True.

 After we got home two of my best friends came over to help decorate our Christmas tree.

The lovely ladies Emma and Maria.

Working on our masterpiece.

Tadaaa!

And this gingerbread tree was made by Emma. Cute as fuck, eh!

 Christmas Eve

The jet lag hit me pretty hard and I did not get any sleep the night before Christmas eve so I was wide awake in the morning when Joulupukin kuumalinja (the Santa Claus hotline) started. It's a live broadcast where kids get to call Santa and talk to him on TV and it's something one just simply must watch every Christmas!

Santa!!!

 Like every Christmas we went to the cemetery to bring candles to those we have lost. Every year it's cold as balls and this time it even started snowing sideways. But the sight, as always was, beautiful!

Soldiers graves.

Photo by: mom

The Declaration of the Christmas Peace. And all the snow. Photo by mom.

 Because of the cold as balls and sideways-snow I skipped the Declaration of the Christmas peace and headed home to curl my hair and take too many selfies before the Christmas dinner.

#toomanyselfies

 The big dinner took place at my grandparents' house with the whole family. Me and my cousins (the picture on the left) started the night with a game of Cards against humanity. We figured since we've been pretty naughty all year long it wouldn't hurt. 

My grandma had prepared an amazing dinner with all the traditional Christmas foods. The first round is always fish. Salmon (smoked and gravlax), roe, potatoes and eggs. The second round is casseroles (carrot, potato, turnip etc) and the ham.

After the dinner we share the presents. One of us starts and puts on the Santa hat and randomly chooses a present, reads out loud who it's for and brings it to them. Then the one who got the present puts on the hat and picks a present etc. Only after we've gone through all the presents we start opening them.

 After the presents it was time for dessert and at midnight me and my cousins went to church. The midnight service was as beautiful as always and it never fails to make me feel like Christmas.

Christmas Day

On Christmas day we had dinner at my mom's with my grandparents. And then shit got real. A whole bunch of my favorite peeps came over for a pre-party. See, in Finland we spend the Christmas eve with our family, all formal, but on Christmas day we party. Hard. 

In my hometown there are two bar/nightclubs and we ended up having a heated debate on which one to go to. Most of us went to Amarillo because the line to Seurahovi was simply too long.

My lovelies!

 After a decent amount of karaoke and dancing we hopped on a taxi and drove to my dad's house where we spent the next day and night baking Karelian pies, eating, drinking, going to sauna and watching old episodes from a TV show called STAGE. Why? Because once upon 4 years ago we were on it.

"Nice and quiet" dinner with them crazies.

A very special Christmas present from Alaska! Stage-Kake!

We're on TV ya'll!

More pics of the good old times here.

#TB to the Stage

 Kinda crazy. 4 years ago we barely knew each other and now we live in different cities (and in some cases, different countries) but after the amazing experience that STAGE was we're still friends and have reunions and parties like we were never apart.

Home.

I had an absolutely amazing week here in Finland but I'm still excited to go back to Vancouver and start off a new year with the awesome people there. 

Iiris the cat.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!