God jul!

God jul ~ Merry Christmas

In Sweden, they celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. To fully understand Swedish traditions---> 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjcGAKU23Qc

I woke up to two stocking on my bedroom door! 

Santa brought mine from Beaufort!

For breakfast we had sandwiches and St. Lucia buns.

Advent candles!

After breakfast, we went to church!

Louise and Nils preparing some food!

The table ready for Swedish rice pudding!

In the rice pudding there is an almond and if you eat it you will get married in the next year!

Louise got the almond!

Santa came early on skis for us to take a photo!

He doesn't know what to do with out snow!

We watched cartoons, drank glögg, and ate some goodies!

The dinning room ready for dinner!

Julbord

Louise cutting the cucumber!

Louise admiring the yummy food!

"Skå!" 

(Christmas coke)

My lovely family <3

A tradition in Sweden is for Santa to deliver the Christmas gifts after dinner! Louise and I went for a walk to see how many times we could see Santa walking from house to house! We saw him three times! 

"SANTA! OH MY GOD! SANTA'S COMING! I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM!"

Santa!!!

Santa asked for whisky and because Nils wasn't around Agneta gave Santa the best of the best!

My favorite Christmas tradition was writing rhymes about the gifts we got each other.

Louise's amazing candy table! She was baking all week!

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

Exchange Student Breakfast Club

The girls from Uppsala came to Stockholm for the night!

Abigail from Colorado and Sierra from Utah eating at Upper Crust!

Christmas market in Old Town!

Everyone came over for dinner; I made hamburgers plus veggie burgers for the two vegetarians. We had a great time, laughing, girl talking (until Daniel arrived) and catching up. We joked around that we were like The Breakfast Club because we are all so different. We have Beth the hippie, Sierra the Mormon, Annalise the jock, Gayatri the quiet girl, Abi the none stop talker, me the southern gal and then Sam who is the rich annoying ghetto asian. We all gave ourself these stereotypes so way to go Sam.

I asked for one good photo ya'll!

I believe this is when I yelled at them!

Thanks ya'll <3

Typical Thursday Night

Every Thursday, I go to my counselor, Michael Knight's, house, he is from England. His wife, Nadia, who is from Egypt, tutors me in Swedish with the help from their grandkids. Elliot is seven and loves reading books with me and helping me pronounce the words correctly. Leona is five and just loves playing with her stuffed animals; she isn't into the whole Swedish thing.

Tea time is my favorite time!

Last Thursday, Michael and I made mac and cheese!

Louise made an amazingly awesome gingerbread house! I had to share it!

Go Louise!

The Start of the Goodbyes

The time is coming to say goodbye to our oldies. Which is sad for two reasons; our amazing friends are leaving us and we are about to become the oldies which means our exchange year is slowly coming to an end. My halfway mark is January 30th. It feels like just yesterday I was meeting the Leijonhufvud's for the first time and now I only have fourteen days with them until I change families. 

Brooke, Sam and I went to dinner to give each other Christmas gifts (it was not a goodbye dinner for Brooke).

Getting lost trying to find a restaurant results in me sitting down and making Sam figure it out.

Stockholm is so pretty! <3

Sam and I decided to take Brooke to Friday's to experience the American way of life.

Christmas gifts!

We all ordered the same thing! 

I got Brooke a dish towel. It is something flat she can pack easily and it says Merry Christmas in different languages which symbolizes her exchange.

Brooke got Sam and I cute Australian themed Christmas trinkets plus she baked us yummy cookies!

Sam's dessert!

Brooke's dessert!

She was overwhelmed by it!

Mine!

Brooke, I love you to the moon and back a thousand times! It is going to be strange not being able to text and say lets meet up in the city in a hour! You always have a home in Beaufort, SC!