Yule 2020, Anna’s 17th Birthday & Gingerbread House

2020-12-24Christmas Standard

[Photos taken 24-30 December 2020, posted online 16 May 2021. The weather is stationary, but we set up two new veggie-gardens for Anna yesterday.]

Icelandic authorities encouraged everyone to plan the festivities in “max ten 16+ year-olds yule-bubbles”. This meant the usual yuletide parties were canceled, so it was a super quiet holiday season. Furthermore, the bubbles implied separation in time, so my mom and doggy came over for yule, then a week later we went to Finnur’s parents’ place for New Year’s Eve, along with one of his sisters and her family.

Anna turned 17 years old on Christmas Day, and much of the day was spent in the kitchen. We took the week between yule and new year’s off from work, and there was much chilling, at least one jog, a library visit, a few cafe-visits, more kitchen activities, a little bit of furniture and Lego building, and just before the new year, I finally worked up the mental energy to make the annual ginger-bread house. (80-ish images total)

Thursday 24 December 2020

Grandma and three grand-kiddos by the tree.
The tree swimming on top of presents.
Mom and Spori in da house!
Spori was in need of a walk, so I took him out. The weather was muggy, somewhat windy, drizzly, but thankfully not super cold. Seeing the wind around the cemetery, we took a u-turn in search of calmer areas.
Big dog, willing to chill a bit for a photo. I also stopped to think what route we should take, trying to optimize shelter from the wind.
Up on the hill. By threading paths lined with teenage trees, we were exposed to the wind for only short spurts of time. But we did arrive back home rather drenched.
Emma contemplating what pre-dinner package to open.
Dinner beginning, appetizer about to be served.
The appetizer plate. We were so busy eating the delicious food, I didn’t take a photo of the main course!
Meanwhile, Mr. Spori got put inside his cage with a kong-toy which contains food, but you have to shake it out. He wasn’t too pleased with such shenanigans, and there was no way he was taking a nap.
Finnur giving Spori the stay-still-then-you’ll-get-a-treat treatment.
Time to open presents!
I was there!
Good times were had!
Two redheads.
Bjarki posing in his new rhino-cozy-overalls.
Emma happy with her haul.
Anna got a wished-for dragon. Amazon came through 🙂
The tag that sparked “are they pregnant??!?!” wonderings, as the “… and the parents” (“…og foreldrum”) was mis-read as a fourth kid’s name! 😉

Friday 25 December 2020

Anna, the freshly minted (and washed) 17 year old opening her presents. First up, a book on gardening.
She was quite pleased with this official Harry Styles merchandize.
Also, her first house-wares. At some point she will be moving to her own place!
The rest of the day was spent in the kitchen. Finnur sous vide-ed hung smoked lamb, but we discovered yet again that sous vide and lamb aren’t really friends.
Anna decided to bake doughnuts!
Doughy fingers.
Baking by candle-light.
Emma built some lego sets.
Birthday dinner served!
Food love.
Anna waiting for us to clear the table so she could get on with the doughnut baking.
Dreeeewl.
Glazing by hand.
These were gooooood!

Saturday 26 December 2020

Proper yule-snow arrived a couple of days late.
For a while we had a lot of bird-traffic eating the food we’d put out.
Little birds lining up.
After too much sitting around, I needed to go out for a jog. The weather was cold but gorgeous.
The sun barely clearing the horizon shortly before 3 pm.
Lovely view. Mount Esja off in the distance.
Everyone and their uncle seemed to be outside.
The bench and the moon.
Proof it was me.

Monday 28 December 2020

Sitting at a cafe, I started seeing posts on Facebook about The Clouds Right Now. Sure enough, as I glanced out the window, the sky was full of rainbow clouds. Apparently they’re called “polar stratospheric clouds” or “glitský” in Icelandic.
We went to the library (yes, they were open, but limiting the number of people that could be inside), borrowed this book, and then didn’t read it. I thought it was only appropriate given the title.
The friendly downtown library. My friends in the US reminded me that they’d only had curb-side pick-up-and-drop-off library service for months at that point. Our library also had a pre-order service, behind that rack were boxes with bags waiting for pickup.
We went to mom’s to walk el doggo.
No slipping please!
Soccer practice in full swing. Yay for plastic grass!
We peeked into my brother’s place for a bit before walking back.
A gnaw-able gate.
Back home, Anna made these fun, surprisingly-sturdy, paper claws.

Tuesday 29 December 2020

Cafe-life is the sweet life. It’s now fashionable to have multiple companies in one commercial space (eg. “food halls”). On the left there is a cafe-shop counter, and on the right there is a bakery counter. The cafe snacks and breads are not from the bakery!
Outside there was still a dusting of snow. Also, that’s the current style of apartment flats being built in Iceland.
We got mail!!! The first of the foreign cards arrived, no doubt delayed by Covid, and almost zero international flights.
Yule-cards have fallen out of favor in Iceland, nowadays people just post a photo and/or a greeting on Facebook. I think the majority of the cards that eventually came our way were from abroad! We greatly appreciated them all!
Emma’s old Ikea “star-duvet”. It will be in use until it literally falls apart.
Houseguests!
I decided to start prepping Emma’s room a bit, so I assembled the smallest unit I’d gotten from Ikea before yule.
Stuff transferred from one set of shelves to the new ones as a stop-gap measure.
Finnur and Anna again stayed in the kitchen for most of the day, making sopapillas, and Icelandic doughnuts (kleinur).
Lots of twirled dough.
Finnur working the deep-fryer.
Crack, snarckle and pop!
Goood stuff!
The deep-fryer was then used to make sopapillas! Anna was dough-goddess as usual.
The master fryer.
Emma wanted photos of her with the jigsaws she completed.

Wednesday 30 December 2020

At long last it was ginger-bread-house-day! That’s Finnur taking revenge for all the kitchen photos I took of him!
Emma working hard.
House-pieces in-progress.
I’m a sucker for forms!
House being assembled.
By now we have the routine worked out quite nicely. I design and make the house pieces, Anna makes the icing, we assemble the house, and then she decorates.
Icing magic!
The next day I took a photos of the finished house. It was quite festive!
The back side. The house gets to live until 6 January (the end of yule), when it gets demolished and devoured!