Julotta 2005

I decided to actually attend a Julotta this morning. I had attended one maybe 15 years ago, crossing a lake by spark up in Dalarna with a friend to get there. This morning I "just" had to take the car to town, 7 km away. Upon getting up at 6 for the 7 am service I decided I had to skip breakfast - it was 2 degrees under zero and the car was coated in ice!

Getting inside the car was a challange - it had rained all day Christmas Eve and the doors were frozen shut. I managed to jimmey the hatchback open, and could crawl into the station wagon end, but of course I still had the net installed so the car could be packed full of stuff. I had to remove the netting and get the back seats moved down with frozen fingers, and then was able to throw my weight against the door to get it opened. Had to repeat this twice, once for the back seat and once for the front seat.

I spent 20 minutes scraping away the ice with a broken ice scraper. I made a mental note to splurge on a new one and made it to town with just a few minutes to spare. I parked near 3 other cars thinking well, now we are 4, maybe even 7 people. I opened the big door of the church - to a crush of humanity! Would you believe, there were all sorts of people, some even younger than me, who actually got up for 7am in the morning! Okay, every year it is getting easier to be younger than me, but I still normally manage to drastically lower the average age of the service I am attending.

Well, this should be some service! But the priest-of-the-day was the old drone, he can really put you to sleep with his monotone voice. I had hoped on something like the Danish church had promised, all about the foreigners discussion, but it was just something Christmasy. I don't understand how the rest of the people stayed awake! But maybe it was the expectation of going home that kept them awake - coming out of the church to a breaking, icy dawn was quite breathtaking. The sky was painted a light blue streaked with many red tones, the trees were dusted with frost. I took a right instead of a left and took the long way home, just to relish these gorgeous moments - with nary a car in sight. Maybe this is why the people get up so early on Christmas Morning.

Ha en god forsättning på helgen!