We are in the depths of No­vem­ber and ap­p­ro­ac­hing the dar­kest time of ye­ar. No­vem­ber is of­ten rat­her grey and if the sun does hap­pen to ap­pe­ar, one must drop what they are doing and run out­si­de if at all pos­sib­le, and catch a few fast es­ca­ping rays. Ma­y­be that is the re­a­son why Fin­ns seem to al­most ne­ver sleep in the sum­mer; there is a need to take in as much light as pos­sib­le as the ot­her half of the ye­ar is so much dar­ker. It is not an unu­su­al sight to see so­me­o­ne ro­wing a boat at 3 am, in the stil­l­ness of the sum­mer night. The sky is pain­ted in pas­tels and the birds are sin­ging a noc­tur­nal con­cert. It is one of the things that make the Nor­dic count­ries so spe­ci­al, the very dis­tinct se­a­sons each with their own raw be­au­ty.

In the dar­kest part of the ye­ar co­mes a hid­den bles­sing. It is as if it en­cou­ra­ges us to slow down, gi­ves us per­mis­si­on to per­haps read the long un­fi­nis­hed book or era­se some of the hec­tic er­rands of the dark eve­ning and just fo­cus on the mo­ment with our close ones. And with the new sur­ge of Co­ro­na vi­rus around the world, more of us are sta­ying home. That me­ans that some of us are fee­ling more lo­ne­ly and ot­hers who are used to going at all ti­mes need to prac­ti­ce being in one place. And in the hou­se­hold with many pe­op­le, the de­ci­bels tend to rise and the hou­se seems a bit small. This time po­ses chal­len­ges for us all.

As we live through the end of fall and ap­p­ro­ach the Christ­mas se­a­son, my hus­band needs to be gone for work. My child­ren and I have found a few met­hods in fin­ding the joy in the long dark days. It usu­al­ly starts right around All Saints’ day, when we have our first pik­ku­jou­lu, or Lit­t­le Christ­mas. The lights are dim­med and cand­les are lit and mu­sic is soft­ly pla­ying in the backg­round. All of the child­ren help clean up the ge­ne­ral are­as as they know what is co­ming. So­me­ti­mes is as simp­le as some pop­corn and a fire in the fi­rep­la­ce and a bo­ard game, and at ot­her ti­mes it may be more ela­bo­ra­te with the tab­le set with crys­tal gob­lets fil­led with a cre­a­my des­sert. In the end, it is about ma­king time to spend to­get­her. At ti­mes we will have our lit­t­le fa­mi­ly par­ties when dad ar­ri­ves and has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to spend a lit­t­le time with us. This ye­ar as phy­si­cal get-to­get­hers are li­mi­ted, it seems that these mo­ments with the ones ne­a­rest to us have even more sig­ni­fi­can­ce.

We have these lit­t­le fa­mi­ly Christ­mas par­ties up un­til Christ­mas with ir­re­gu­lar re­gu­la­ri­ty. They help car­ry us through the dark­ness to­wards the ce­leb­ra­ti­on of light, pro­mi­se and hope. Christ­mas.

Text: Lai­la Ul­jas

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.