Last Christmas & Christmas thoughts

My last post was about my thoughts about Christmas and my traditions, so I thought I’d continue a little bit more with the same topic, and tell a little bit about my last Christmas! 🙂 This time more as a photo diary! 🙂 The photos here are all #nofilter and taken without thinking anything at all. I hope it also gives you this ”real” feeling, as they are very, well, ”real” and non-edited or staged etc 🙂

I’ll include a little bit pre-Christmas pictures as well! 🙂 Just before Christmas I was in Turku, which is one of the places in Finland where I have lived. Even though I still had a bit of a flu going on, it was so nice to see some of my friends who are living there (and their furry friends ! <3)

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Couple of days before Christmas making gingerbreads in Helsinki! Me and two of my friends have a tradition of making gingerbreads together before Christmas! This time one of them was in India, but thanks to the nowadays technology we had a video connection with her! ;P

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Just before Christmas me and my sister went to REDI which is quite a new shopping center in Helsinki. I’m not a ”huge fan” of shopping centers (as I prefer to buy things second hand and so on), but it was nice to see it since there had been quite a lot of talk about that place… Before heading to the supermarket we had amazing burger at Bun2Bun and then went for some hot chocolate and gingerbread latte with the last Christmas food planning!

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Helsinki and Christmas lights

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Me using the Christmas sweater I gave my sister last Christmas :D (I only had that one on for a short time, I was mostly using my own Christmas sweater but somehow didn’t have it there :P). But how cute is this one too!

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On Christmas Eve we had that rice porridge I was talking about in my previous post and Christmas sauna at my sister’s place, it looked so lovely there!

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One of my ”Christmas looks” (and Christmassy sweater here too! :D). Christmas earrings and Christmas nails too, because well, why not? :P

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As said earlier, my pictures are quite random. I didn’t ”plan to” take those, I just took those, and now when I look at those they look nice to me because it reminds me of those moments, but I guess those are bit random… I mean here is a picture of my dad’s plate before he had anything but salad there… :D

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I think I get something wrapped in this paper every year – we always reuse the wrapping papers, or recycle if those cannot be used anymore

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I didn’t get this beer, but I loved the bottle!

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Then on Christmas day it was time to leave Helsinki – hello countryside!

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I was walking on the frozen lake (and my sister was sitting at our pier (I don’t think I have ever used this word in English btw :D)

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After visiting our summer cottage we went to my aunt’s family’s place, where we had some very happy (and enthusiastic) little ones welcoming us

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Finnish countryside views are probably my favourite views in this planet

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It’s either my sister, or an elf walking to the stable

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And look who we saw there! And all them horses had their own Christmas trees as well! (This is my sister’s picture btw ;) ). Btw I always thought all the Finnhorses are more or less like this, but recently I found out it’s not the case! If you want to see how they can also look like, check out this amazing article!

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This is for the ones who understands Finnish (and who can see this :D), I agree with this text so much!

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I love reading Christmas cards, I loved this one because it also said ”magical”, like I said one million times in my previous post :D

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I got this Moomin Mug as a Christmas present, it’s the special one for this winter, love it (and only used that one on Christmas days!). Looking at this picture makes me almost taste the gingerbread coffee in my mouth, so good and so Christmassy!

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As said in the previous post, on the 26th of December (I almost wrote Christmas, I guess I’m bit tired, and full of Christmassy thoughts :D And also, in Finnish December is literally ”Christmas month” = joulukuu :) ) we go to sing Christmas carols with my mom! :) (And my Christmas nails got a bit of a transformation – I was making the dishes and afterwards they were more like a ”French manicure” of some kind :D

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Here is some of my Christmas present that I received! I never receive a ”crazy amount” of presents and I guess never have, but I think quality over quantity! And there’s way too much stuff in the world anyways, so I prefer not to get any ”crazy amounts” :D Everything that I got was so nice and so thoughtful, really warmed my heart! Oh and I did also get a new grey scarf (as I lost my previous one in Hamburg), it’s bit different than the previous one, but I love it (and it’s a Finnish one!)

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One of the cutest Christmas windows in Helsinki in my opinion!

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In the end I want to give some of my ”tips and tricks” for that ”peaceful and magical Christmas”.

So:

Tip #1: Turn off the wifi/mobile data and skip social media and scrolling on the electronic devices. There is 365 days in the year, so if you spend 3 days without being active on social media, you still have 362 days to do whatever you want in the world of internet. This is only my suggestion, but in my opinion it makes a huge difference, so I really recommend to try it! It also gives you a bit of this ”old-fashioned” feeling – you know times before all the smartphones and so on – and I totally love it! I actually really like Christmas to be a bit ”old-fashioned” so it goes well with that mentality! :)

If you understand Finnish and read the article I included in this post, there was talk about the importance of ”boredom” and I totally agree. Life is so hectic that it’s only good to get a bit ”bored” every now and then, in a good kind of way.

And the feeling of being present, and only present and nowhere else at the same time, not in a virtual world, but just here and now, it’s great and in my opinion very ”Christmassy”. Actually before this Christmas I was asking myself that do I really need to/want to do this this year as well, since in 2018 I had a lot of times without internet and so on (I was even living without internet a while in Poland). But few days before Christmas the answer was clear: yes, I needed a break. A Christmas. Just being present. Somehow before Christmas I felt I “had to” spend a lot of time steering at my phone and sending messages and replying to messages – of course it’s nice to catch up and being in contact with friends… But I don’t know, enough is also enough. And sometimes less is more, like in Christmas – less digital devices, and more candles and books and chocolate – yes please! And you know, sometimes we need a break also from the good things – I’m not saying social media or being in contact with your friends is bad, but a break from everything does wonders as well.

Tip #2: Have as little lights on as possible and instead of “normal lights” use candles and Christmas lights etc. So atmospheric, and totally makes the “magical atmosphere” ;)

Tip #3: I suggest not to do any ”normal things” such as going to a supermarket etc. This is actually very related to the #1, but in my opinion during Christmas is better to skip all ”normal” things – for example instead of ”normal” breakfast eat more Christmassy breakfast! :)

Tip #4: Relax and enjoy! Really. Don’t stress how things should be, how things were last year, what kind of Christmas that cool girl in Instagram is having/had… No, no, no! The more you let go of any pressure, and simple enjoy… The happier you’ll be :) A lot of people put a huge amount of pressure to Christmas (without doing it on purpose necessarily), and I get that – Christmas comes only once in a year and we simply want it to be “perfect” and “magical” – but the best way of it to be somewhere close to “perfect” and “magical is when you LET GO! And relax and enjoy. Just like that. And with relaxing I don’t (only) mean reading a book and eating a pile of chocolate, but cooking and other preparations can be (and should be) relaxing and fun when everyone just CHILLS and enjoys.

Tip #5: Christmas music (and Christmas movies). I was listening to Christmas songs way before Christmas, usually at work I was listening from Spotify Christmas Hits, but the best kind of music is in my opinion for example Finnish Christmas radio, Jouluradio.fi or this list on Spotify!

And as mentioned in my previous post, there are several Christmas movies that I love and those helps to get into that Christmas mood as well!

If you have some other tips and tricks, or anything else to comment, please do so! Much love to everyone!

xx Aino

Suhteet Oma elämä