A Christmas Update!

I know I'm lacking the updating skills that are required to keep everyone at home and anywhere else updated about what's going on here in Michigan. I'm sorry for that and I'll try to improve myself.


The week that has passed have been filled with things to do and places to be. I'll start from the beginning with December 24th and Christmas Eve at my friend Kelley's house.


We got invited to join Kelley's family for dinner and a sleepover on Christmas Eve, which in Sweden is the day we have the main celebrations on. Before we went over to their house, I made Jess watch the traditional Donald Duck even though everything was in Swedish and the English voices in the background can't barely be heard. She made it through alive though and she liked some parts of it. 


After the program we ate and then got all our stuffs together to get over to Kelley's house. There we met her mom's brother and sister, and they shared all these crazy stories from their childhood (which were insane and we were crying from laughing). Kelley bought us a stocking each (those you hang by the open fire, mom) and I got penguin socks, a candle, chocolate and a little soft toy wolf. We had a delicious dinner and delicious deserts and after a few hours we got really tired and got into our pj's and started to watch a movie. Though, just about 20 min in we almost fell asleep so we decided to call it a day and go to bed. The next morning we had breakfast with the family and their old babysitter, who is 81 years old and acts about 25. She's amazing and we had a good time talking to her. After the whole breakfast thing we had to go back to Jess' parents place, there our 3.5 hour drive started.


Usually the drive from Grand Rapids to Clinton Township takes about 2.5 hour but we got lost and drove wrong way and it took way longer time than it should be. I did get a look at Downtown Detroit though and it looks pretty good. We got home and got ready to go over to her family celebration at her aunt's place. It was the same people as on Thanksgiving, but somehow it seemed like there were way more people this time. There was tables filled with food and deserts, and a table full of alcohol. See, here they drink a lot on holidays, at least in my opinion. Someone had made a mix DVD with home movies from when Jess and her cousins were very small. And wow, Jess was so cute when she was a little kid! Nothing has really changed apart from her hair haha. She's still insane and full of energy and really really tricky!


The past few days, I've recieved a lot of questions about American traditions, and what I can say is that it's actually pretty much the same as in Sweden. They've got this whole insane thing with Christmas decorations though, both the inside and the outside is filled up with lights and other kinds of decorations. The turkey for dinner isn't what we are used to see in movies, it more looks like how we serve our ham - sliced up. The rest of the food is more or less the same, just cooked differently. Also the way the wrap presents is different, the use of pretty bags are as common as the actual paper wrapping. This is something I really like because you get a pretty bag and you can reuse it the next year for one of the presents you're giving away. It's a nice circle :)


That's our Christmas. I decided to buy myself a present after my laptop started to sound like a chainsaw and shut itself down when it wanted to. So I bought a new MacBook Pro, which is like heaven! It makes no sounds at all, it's really fast and the design is amazing. I'm happy, even if it cost me a lot! Though I probably saved about 3.500 SEK because I bought it in the US and not in Sweden :)


Merry Christmas everyone! (even if I'm 5 days late)