Pikkujoulu 2011

Monday was Pikkujoulu.  It's our "little Christmas" celebration.  Pikkujoulu is the hard to pronounce way to say "little Christmas" in Finnish.

We celebrate our little Christmas the way the Dahl family celebrated Christmas Eve when we were growing up.   It's more of an American-of-mostly-Swedish-Norwegian-British-descent celebration rather than a Finnish celebration.  But I think having a hard to pronounce Finnish name for it adds a little something.

We had a cute shepherd on hand...

Or a goatherd?

Horace Vandegelder...still the best pet ever.  He requires nothing and is even remarkably quiet.

We had piano playing...

Some meditation?

And a grandma that helped make things better.

Braeden throwing his head back in laughter makes me happy.

We also performed our own Carol of the Bells with my bells I got for Christmas last year.  I wrote down "sheet music" for the bells and Braeden played the song on the piano.  For some reason, it helped if we were all hunkered down on the floor together.

Emma's not pictured but she participated too.

Geri joined in with us later and we switched around some.  I played the piano and Braeden got a turn on the bells.  If you heard dogs barking in the neighborhood that night it could have been a reaction to our concert.

Adam read to us from the Bible:

Emma has taken to hiding behind a curtain of hair...Violet from The Incredibles?

And we had lots of good treats.

Mark noticed a new addition to our Christmas bears that Adam had surreptitiously added at some point.

We love her but I'm not sure we've settled on a name.  We usually discuss for a few days.

Hyvää Pikkujoulua!!