It will only get better from now on

December 22nd: a magical date.

Why? Well, because it's the winter solstice: the shortest day of the year! As you can see from the chart below, the sun today rose at 11:23 and set at 3:30, just above 4 hours of (alleged) sunlight. This being my first winter at this latitude, it's been difficult getting up in the morning at times, to say the least. But from today and for the next 6 months, each day will be a bit longer, until we hit the summer solstice and its 20+ hours of light goodness.

4h 06m 45s

Of course, by Monday we will already get 10 hours of daylight and temperatures as high as the hottest summer days in this fair town (19 degrees!). But that's because we will be in Beirut for two weeks :)

In the meantime, Jo and I would like to wish any readers of this blog Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

There's a tree behind us, I swear

The downtown Christmas tree, an annual gift from Norway, located by the Parliament

On an unrelated note: does this hat make me look Amish? Because that's not my intention...

Christmas stuff

A few weeks ago we went to a store and bought a Christmas tree. I grew up on plastic trees, but for the first time in my life, that was a real tree! :) Of course we got all sort of decorations for it too. It certainly helps having a nicely lit tree when it's so dark outside in the morning.

We also went to the nearby town of Hafnarfjörður this weekend. Jó had heard about a Christmas village, which turned out to be a stage on which some kids were singing / playing some music, and about 10 or so booths selling ornaments and other things.

And in one week, we will be leaving for a two week trip to Lebanon! I haven't been there in 2 years, so I'm very much looking forward to it :)

Captive tree

Decorated!

The kids choir, in Hafnarfjörður

There were plenty of trees there, of course

Skyr ornaments

Those dogs are more fashionable than I am...

Of course, we just had to take a picture :)

The sun was setting... I think it was around 3pm

I like the angle of that picture