Winter Solstice / Heavy Christmas
Today is the winter solstice, i.e. the shortest day of the year. In Helsinki, the sun was up for 5 hours, 49 minutes. It rose today at 9.24 and set at 15.13. I left work today at 3 to watch the sunset. Right outside our office is a nice place to watch. I took some photos with my cell phone camera.
It wasn't this blue in reality, but somehow my camera didn't capture the purple color properly.
This pic shows a little bit of purple, but again, it does not do justice to the real thing.
Today is also the day when most pagans celebrate Yule. I celebrate it on Dec 24th. Today I'm going to Tavastia to see a a concert called Heavy Christmas. I'm really looking forward to it, as the concert was amazing last year! They do heavy metal versions of classic Christmas songs, which might sound scary, but really is not. Or you can be the judge - they have samples of their songs at their myspace.
The whole Heavy Christmas was my boyfriend's brother's idea. (From their myspace: "Erkka Korhonen got the idea of the project in 2004. T2 productions quickly signed the project for a full length album with Erkka as a producer, musical director and main arranger.") The singers in the Heavy Christmas-project are all well-known Finnish singers, the most famous of them being Marco Hietala from Nightwish and Tarot. The others performing tonight are: Jarkko Ahola (Teräsbetoni), J-P Leppäluoto (Charon), Ville Tuomi (Suburban Tribe), Antony Parviainen (Machine Men).
I played both Christmas albums to my mother, and she loved them! She is coming to the gig tonight with her fiancé, and Mike's parents are coming as well, because their other son Erkka plays guitar tonight. So besides a great band and lots of friends, my mother will be there as well! I couldn't be happier! I and Mike are meeting our parents before the gig, and all six of us will go and have a drink before the gig starts.
It wasn't this blue in reality, but somehow my camera didn't capture the purple color properly.
This pic shows a little bit of purple, but again, it does not do justice to the real thing.
Today is also the day when most pagans celebrate Yule. I celebrate it on Dec 24th. Today I'm going to Tavastia to see a a concert called Heavy Christmas. I'm really looking forward to it, as the concert was amazing last year! They do heavy metal versions of classic Christmas songs, which might sound scary, but really is not. Or you can be the judge - they have samples of their songs at their myspace.
The whole Heavy Christmas was my boyfriend's brother's idea. (From their myspace: "Erkka Korhonen got the idea of the project in 2004. T2 productions quickly signed the project for a full length album with Erkka as a producer, musical director and main arranger.") The singers in the Heavy Christmas-project are all well-known Finnish singers, the most famous of them being Marco Hietala from Nightwish and Tarot. The others performing tonight are: Jarkko Ahola (Teräsbetoni), J-P Leppäluoto (Charon), Ville Tuomi (Suburban Tribe), Antony Parviainen (Machine Men).
I played both Christmas albums to my mother, and she loved them! She is coming to the gig tonight with her fiancé, and Mike's parents are coming as well, because their other son Erkka plays guitar tonight. So besides a great band and lots of friends, my mother will be there as well! I couldn't be happier! I and Mike are meeting our parents before the gig, and all six of us will go and have a drink before the gig starts.