Busy December

December started with Santa's arrival to Järvenpää, as usual in a sleigh on wheels, pulled by his faithfull Finnhorse Uuras. Unfortunately my photo didn't catch the whole horse.

  Here is a portrait of him from an earlier visit when we had some snow too in early December:

Santa greeted us, his little tonttu elves were not looking very happy in the cold wind.

The parade included several sport clubs and such, but they were not carrying any signs with their names so we had to guess who they were.

This group at least was obviously dog friends

or maybe sheep farmers? Or are those dogs with reindeer antlers?

I have been making little gifts

in red and white

and socks in many sizes

some so dark I could hardly see what I was knitting.

Other gifts were mailed before I remembered to take photos, and some will not be shown before Christmas for obvious reasons.

We started feeding the birds again in October after a long Summer break. Surprisingly, the bullfinches come in biggest numbers, 6 to 15 at a time, but there are great tits, blue tits, coal tits, willow tits and even long tailed tits (who are not really tits any more but have their own group name) regularly coming to enjoy their sunflower seeds. Today we saw a tree creeper again, jays (Eurasian Jay) come often just like magpies. Sometimes the blackbird (Turdus merula) visits, they may stay here fort he Winter. We have just a little snow now, enough to make the world seem less black.

Vintage Thingies 50 - Straw Goat

This is my 50th VTT. Suzanne is hosting again, and the links are here.

 

This is a traditional Finnish Christmas ornament, a goat made of straw. My mother-in-law made it for me and

my family in the early 80's, so it can be counted for vintage.

 

What does a goat have to do with Christmas? Long time ago masked young men wearing goat horns and a fur coat went from house to house begging for the last Christmas beer on January 7th, when the Christmas season was over. Their version of trick or treating! At some places they did this also before Christmas, sometimes throwing little gifts through the door and disappearing before being seen.  (This was the beginning of the Father Christmas character as well. His Finnish name is Joulupukki, joulu = Christmas, pukki = goat.) The straw goat is related to this tradition; it was important to see that the straw goat ornament had enough beer to drink. Straw items, like the more Finnish tradition himmeli, are usually referring to good harvest or fertility. The straw goat tradition comes to us from Sweden. There is a giant straw goat every year in Gävle, but it usually gets burned by bad boys before Christmas.

The real Joulupukki's office is here in English, you can follow several links and see tonttu elves at work, Finnish reindeers and arctic landscapes. I hope it will give you Christmas spirits!