Christmas

At work there are lots of candies and cookies (especially ginger snaps) at this time of year. I even got extra for helping a colleague with research. Last week I made one more trip to Ikea for their Christmas buffet. The herring was so good.

The Christmas celebration was the shortest in history - I spent about 28 hours in Göteborg. I had to leave early because there was a storm coming Monday. But we managed to do most of the things we normally do. There was great food, for instance herring, Jansson's Temptation, meatballs, homemade bread, cheeses, roasted ham and much else. Santa arrived very conveniently after dinner, bringing some presents. I got a ticket for a show, a bar of soap, a fridge magnet, a veggie peeler(!), a cookie tin and five pieces of Christmas ornaments. On the Sunday the mall in the city center was open and the sales had already started. I went with my mother and sister on a shopping trip. We got even more ornaments, this time half price off. After the lutfisk meal (which I can't stand so I have meatballs instead) I went home by train again Sunday afternoon.

The storm was pretty bad, parts of the roof fell off my building. It was impossible to sleep so Tuesday at work I was not at my best game. Few of us were. This time of year there are not many visitors but at least two people have to be on duty in the stacks. I have done the storage round myself twice this week. It happens that people who are not normally patrons here use the library over the holidays. Today we had a large request, 20 years of an economics journal, and the person wrote a message saying he wanted all of it at once because he was only in town for a few days. It filled up a double-sided cart.

I sent out the usual Christmas letter last week via e-mail. If anyone feels neglected, let me know.