Christina here. It’s been a strange year and Christmas is definitely going to be different, although I’m lucky enough to be able to celebrate it with my husband and two daughters. It’s making me think about the past, however, and I’m feeling a trifle nostalgic. The Christmases we had as children always seem so much more magical than anything we can have as adults, and it’s lovely to have those memories. So today I thought I’d share the kind of Christmas I had as a child:-
It all began on the first Sunday of Advent – whichever Sunday was closest to the 1st December. In the town where I lived that was the day all the shops were allowed to unveil their Christmas window displays (not late October like these days!) and the town’s Christmas lights were switched on. Just about the entire population trooped down to walk around and look at them. At that time of year in Sweden it gets dark before 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and I can never remember a year when we didn’t have lots of snow by then so the lights looked magical. There was also a Christmas market inside a huge underground car park (very sensible as it’s too cold to stand outside at that time of year). Lots to enchant a little girl!