God Jul

Because Christin loves all things Swedish (having lived in Sweden for many years and having a Swedish passport) I booked us at a pop up Swedish Christmas dinner ("julbord").  Something about following signs through the stairwell made it that much more intriguing.

First stop:  The wish bakery.  Mulled wine, ginger cookies and a wish wall.

You wrote down your wish for the new year and added it to the tapestry.

Christin's was about her dog Ichi and it was in Swedish. 
(I guess dogs all speak a universal language - "woof")

Some wishes were doable...

some were not.

Some were intriguing.

Guess who wrote this?

Hopefully no one from our party wrote this!

Bill trumped us all with this.

Christin was SO HAPPY.  She was speaking in Swedish to everyone and talking about where they lived and how she knew someone who lived there etc etc etc.  

Her chit chat served us well as the kitchen had run out of saffron bread earlier in the evening but somehow they found a few pieces for us!  This is supposedly a super delicacy in Sweden and it was very tasty.

The decor was simple but festive.

The food was buffet style at different stations.   In Sweden the food is usually all put out on the table at once so that people can choose their favorite traditional foods rather than coming out with each one as a course.  In theory there were seven courses here - I lost count as to how many I had.  My favorites were the ginger cookies, gravlax and dill sauce, the cheese, the swedish meatballs, and the brussels sprouts.  Christin was all over the cinnamon porridge.

I don't even know how Les Mis came up but Bill convinced me to do a verse of "Red the blood of angry men…" knowing that I would give it my all.

Mr Dibley came along.  He considered Christin to be a bit juvenile and kept his back to her the whole time.

Mr Dibley toasted the julbord.  Here's to the start of the holiday season!