Our Swedish-American Christmas tree

Not having a car hasn't really posed a problem to us living in Stockholm. We are able to take advantage of our Lidingöbanan (tram) into Stockholm to connect to the Tunnelbanan (T).  Even though we live in a house, the tram is an 8 minute walk and we've been making the best of it, even in the snow.

However, when it comes to getting a Christmas tree, we were afraid that we would need to convince one of our kind neighbors into helping us with a car.  We've never attempted to get a Christmas tree to our house without a car ... how do we do this? Are you allowed to take a tree on the bus?  This could get weird.

I asked our local grocery store cashier if Christmas trees were being sold around the area.  He assured me that a guy sells trees "later on in December, at the electric hus."  He points across the tram tracks and I see two electric shed type buildings that could qualify as an "electric hus" and just cross my fingers that Christmas trees will magically appear sometime in December.

So, fast-forward to after St. Lucia day, Jon and I decide that "today is the day!" -- we need to get a Christmas tree today!  It's somewhat blizzard-ing outside (seems like it does this once a week) and Jon heads out into the snow with the intent of taking the tram to the last place we saw Christmas trees (15 min tram ride away).  The plan: find a tree, bring it back on the tram (we saw someone doing this) and then haul it up our snowy/icy hill.  He says if he's not back in 2 hours, to call it a loss and carry on with life without him.  All jokes aside, I am kind of worried.  It's getting dark around 2pm now and it's already 2:15 when he heads out into the snow.


33 minutes later, the door blasts open and evergreen branches burst through the door.  That was fast! So fast that I didn't think it was Jon but some mystery person dropping off a tree for us.  It turns out that the Christmas tree man set up his trees for sale next to the electric shed by the tram (electric hus!). My grocery-guy was right!  Apparently Jon got to him right as he opened after St. Lucia day.  Perfect timing!  The trees were laid out in the snow and our Christmas tree was packed tight and nearly frozen.  We had to let it thaw a bit in our laundry room - which has a drain in the floor - before we could even think about decorating it.

Now that's a tree!

Not wanting to burn our house down with our old fashioned big American light bulbs, we bought Swedish LED lights - the bulbs are quite tiny but they are for the Swedish voltage and are a little safer for Calvin's fingers.  These lights are really tiny -- nearly fiber optic size...

Our American lights -- I think these just give off a nice soft glow... but they are the wrong voltage

We decorated our tree and put all of the Calvin-friendly ornaments on the bottom half of the tree. His favorite thing is ripping them off the tree, giving them a kiss, then putting them on the floor before moving onto the next ornament.  This continues until I put them back on the tree so he can start all over again. What fun!

Our Swedish language teacher came over and told us all about Swedish traditions around Christmas.  We need to get a Julbock - Christmas goat to stand under our tree and protect our presents.  I asked her if our tree looked "Swedish."  She looked over, paused, and said, "Normally, colored lights are very 'busy' - very American."  HAHAHA she thinks our tree is tacky! That's ok, most Americans think colored lights are tacky too.  We tried explaining that this is something we have in common - we just like tacky.  You can take the girl out of Upstate but you can't take Upstate out of the girl. 

Next Swedish Christmas purchase!

Delightfully internationally tacky with the tiniest bulbs ever made - I love it!