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Today was the Ritual Strip and Slaughter of the Christmas Tree Day. Okay, I realise I am a bit late both by Swedish and UK standards, but I figured I’d wait until Mirinda was away before commencing with the butchery. It’s never a nice sight; so far away from the Tree Dressing Ritual, pre-Christmas.
This year, it was made a lot easier by being such a small tree, accidentally ordered by yours truly. Though, to be fair, Mirinda quite liked it being smaller than usual. And it did manage to fit our 2,000 decorations on its branches. It also remained quite green. Though it didn’t take long to be reduced to a stick.
Emma watched from the safety of the green chair while Freya snored away on the lounge. I’m sure they must be a bit mystified by the sudden presence of a tree in the house and the subsequent destruction of it a few weeks later. Not that they show any concern or curiosity. I do wonder, though, if people have a male dog whether it pees on the Christmas tree.
The remaining stick was soon on the deck, leaning up against the wall, waiting for a clearance of the last bits of snow so it can be recycled properly. While the branches are piled up outside the glass room in preparation for distribution on the now slightly icy path to the road.
The road, by the way, is not icy at all. It’s as if the snow only fell on either side, the road now being completely free of anything even remotely snowy. In fact, when I took the girls for a walk after lunch, I wore my runners without spikes and there was no slipping.
The woodland track, upon which we walked, was silent except for the occasional Trosa Crow Call, and even they were at a distance. It was bliss. And the dogs were in heaven being off lead and allowed to sniff everything and anything. We only met one other person, and she didn’t have a dog so our two could frolic to their hearts content.
Something that amazes me about the snow is how much certain clumps resemble later Picasso works. The random shapes are a result of the grader gathering bits to either side of the track (or road). These bits form into shapes which harden then slowly erode to make smooth, roughly artistic temporary art works.
They can sometimes be extremely aesthetically pleasing. To me, anyway. I’m sure there are certain people who would just kick them over for sport without seeing anything pleasing about them beyond their value as a target.
The rest of my day mostly consisted of housework and eating leftover moussaka.
Just in passing…the place where Mirinda is staying, Gärdet, was where the first, and only, Zeppelin landed. It happened in 1919. It was called Bodensee and was the first Zeppelin built after the First World War. It was a test flight, looking into the viability of a possible future commercial air service between Berlin and Stockholm. About 10,000 people gathered to watch as it arrived. A short time later, the Zeppelin returned to Berlin never to be seen in Sweden again.
