Lucia

Just had a nice Lucia celebration at the Swedish Embassy this evening. The Swedish ambassador is such a great party-giver. She invited a Stockholm choir to Berlin, 20 singers and a director, to give some Lucia concerts. They sang lots of traditional Swedish Christmas songs, dressed in the Lucia garb with one of the sopranos crowned with burning candles (see the nice Carl Larsson picture on the Wikipedia).

Of course, we were in Germany, and burning candles + crowds could mean disaster so there were ambulances parked outside, police, guards, first aid guys, and buckets of water and fire blankets. Gotta be sure nothing goes wrong.

Nothing went wrong. They sang a capella and the acoustics in the Felleshus were quite amazing.

There was Swedish Christmas food - herring, smoked salmon, caviar, cheese, Swedish meatballs, ham, no smoked moose heart though. Had that once, don't need it again. And of course, there was glögg.

Her Excellency (who doesn't really go by that name, she is just Ruth) worked her way around the room, greeting everyone, making sure they had enough to eat and drink. Yes, thanks, all that was missing was some snow!