And so Passed the Holidays Again...
I hope everyone had pleasant Christmas/happy holidays~ ^_^
This probably seems like a pretty late post to be about Christmas, but due to couple of reasons it feels to me like the holidays just ended. The first reason is that here in Finland, Christmas lasts for 3 days, starting on the day of Christmas Eve and ending only after Boxing Day. Not everyone celebrates all 3 days of course, but majority of people do have the days off from work so I think it counts.
The other reason is purely personal; this year we had such busy time for the first 2 days that only yesterday did I feel like it was the proper post-Christmas mood of lazing around eating chocolate. In a way, this year quite reminded me of how Christmas used to be when we were younger, though not necessarily in a good way. We met up with family from both my dad's side and my mom's side on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This means 4 separate come-togethers of relatives, two of which took place at our house on Christmas Eve. Serving Christmas dinner *twice* within the same day is kind of a huge process in itself, let alone with all the brickering between parents that was in the air. It's mainly the brickering and the constant mad rush to try to meet both sides of the family semi-equally that reminded me of childhood years. *sigh, shakes head*
I don't mean to imply my Christmas particulary bad one or anything, though. There were no big crises and no huge fights, it was just quite busy, stressfull and exhausting. I want my time to curl up in a large armchair or sofa and munch on chocolates while reading comics or light-hearted books~!
The Christmas food was, as per usual, delicious. This is quite a blessing, since my parents have a tendency of buying enough food to feed several large armies, so we're probably stuck with left-overs for roughly until New Year. Our Christmas foods are not exactly the traditional ones of Finland, but they aren't spectaculary atypical either. The main dish in my family's table is stuffed turkey as opposed to ham which is the most common choise around here. The turkey is served with red wine based creamy sauce, sweetened mashed potato bake and extra stuffing, which is made of bread, bacon, mandarin oranges, chestnuts and herbs. Before the turkey, we have usually some smoked fish, some grav lax with a sweet mustard dressing, vendance roe mixed with onion and smetana, cold smoked reindeer with horseradish flavored cream cheese, and a pate made of liver and minced meat.
... It's always amusing to me how far from tasty most traditional foods sound when they are just listed out or discriped. XD;; When you're used to them, you don't stop to question how they sound, but having to pause to analyze what they actually are in order to make semi-cohesive list in another language does always open a whole new point of view. They still taste great though! XD
In terms of the fun materialistic side, I wasn't expecting much this year. I had made an agreement with my parents that they would pay some of my ticket to Japan, so I figured that would pretty much be it. However, I did end up with surprisingly many actual packages too. I got couple of comic books of the European variety, a nice short-sleeved purple&white button up shirt, a hoodie, two pairs of Hello Kitty socks (Shh! I like cute and cool socks! And unlike underwear, you actually can show off your socks occationally!) and, from my brother, a Gundam model kit. All in all, nice things and nothing that doesn't suit my tastes. *satisfied~*
On less pleasant subject, I haven't gotten much work done on my article. *wince*. This means I will have hell of couple of days ahead of me. Uwaaaah, stress, panic, stress~! T_T I just... I just want it to be perfect and excellent! Is that truly so much to ask?! *wails, wringing hands in despair*
... *sigh* I guess this shows that as much as I have made progress in dealing with stress, I still haven't really recovered the ability to function properly when there is something I *want to* do great in. The pressure and stress that I collect onto myself intimidates me to the point of rendering me incabable of doing the task until the last minute when it's too late to worry about the polishing and just rush madly to get the task done.
This probably seems like a pretty late post to be about Christmas, but due to couple of reasons it feels to me like the holidays just ended. The first reason is that here in Finland, Christmas lasts for 3 days, starting on the day of Christmas Eve and ending only after Boxing Day. Not everyone celebrates all 3 days of course, but majority of people do have the days off from work so I think it counts.
The other reason is purely personal; this year we had such busy time for the first 2 days that only yesterday did I feel like it was the proper post-Christmas mood of lazing around eating chocolate. In a way, this year quite reminded me of how Christmas used to be when we were younger, though not necessarily in a good way. We met up with family from both my dad's side and my mom's side on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This means 4 separate come-togethers of relatives, two of which took place at our house on Christmas Eve. Serving Christmas dinner *twice* within the same day is kind of a huge process in itself, let alone with all the brickering between parents that was in the air. It's mainly the brickering and the constant mad rush to try to meet both sides of the family semi-equally that reminded me of childhood years. *sigh, shakes head*
I don't mean to imply my Christmas particulary bad one or anything, though. There were no big crises and no huge fights, it was just quite busy, stressfull and exhausting. I want my time to curl up in a large armchair or sofa and munch on chocolates while reading comics or light-hearted books~!
The Christmas food was, as per usual, delicious. This is quite a blessing, since my parents have a tendency of buying enough food to feed several large armies, so we're probably stuck with left-overs for roughly until New Year. Our Christmas foods are not exactly the traditional ones of Finland, but they aren't spectaculary atypical either. The main dish in my family's table is stuffed turkey as opposed to ham which is the most common choise around here. The turkey is served with red wine based creamy sauce, sweetened mashed potato bake and extra stuffing, which is made of bread, bacon, mandarin oranges, chestnuts and herbs. Before the turkey, we have usually some smoked fish, some grav lax with a sweet mustard dressing, vendance roe mixed with onion and smetana, cold smoked reindeer with horseradish flavored cream cheese, and a pate made of liver and minced meat.
... It's always amusing to me how far from tasty most traditional foods sound when they are just listed out or discriped. XD;; When you're used to them, you don't stop to question how they sound, but having to pause to analyze what they actually are in order to make semi-cohesive list in another language does always open a whole new point of view. They still taste great though! XD
In terms of the fun materialistic side, I wasn't expecting much this year. I had made an agreement with my parents that they would pay some of my ticket to Japan, so I figured that would pretty much be it. However, I did end up with surprisingly many actual packages too. I got couple of comic books of the European variety, a nice short-sleeved purple&white button up shirt, a hoodie, two pairs of Hello Kitty socks (Shh! I like cute and cool socks! And unlike underwear, you actually can show off your socks occationally!) and, from my brother, a Gundam model kit. All in all, nice things and nothing that doesn't suit my tastes. *satisfied~*
On less pleasant subject, I haven't gotten much work done on my article. *wince*. This means I will have hell of couple of days ahead of me. Uwaaaah, stress, panic, stress~! T_T I just... I just want it to be perfect and excellent! Is that truly so much to ask?! *wails, wringing hands in despair*
... *sigh* I guess this shows that as much as I have made progress in dealing with stress, I still haven't really recovered the ability to function properly when there is something I *want to* do great in. The pressure and stress that I collect onto myself intimidates me to the point of rendering me incabable of doing the task until the last minute when it's too late to worry about the polishing and just rush madly to get the task done.