Christmas Day & Leif's 45th

Santa Claus (American) came in the night of the 24th....he ate the cookies, gave the reindeer the carrots we had left them and left a pile of gifts with a card for Maya. He thanked her for all the ways in which she has been "good" this past year! Maya was so pleased!

The stockings were knitted by my mom over the years...one of each of us. They stay in Sweden now and we use others when we are in Florida for the holidays. Unfortunately, we have to be careful hanging the stockings to close to our fireplace because we use it and it gets extremely HOT! After a morning of opening Santa's gifts and our "American" gifts...we went to Malmö to celebrate Leif's birthday. Maya is ready to go....but Mom was not feeling well and stayed home to rest. She looks pretty good for not feeling well, eh?
See...you can still be GOOFY at 45 years old! Leif is Bo's youngest brother!
Why is Maya standing at the table? She's singing Happy Birthday to Leif Swedish style! Everyone stands up to sing to the honored person and children often stand on the chairs to be just as tall. "Vi gratulerar lille Leif idag!"
My mother-in-law is just as goofy as her sons at times...I appreciate it so much because in her infinite experience as a mother of 3 boys, grandmother to 5, and a professional "fritids" (after school teacher) she knows just when to employ the goofiness to the adults' advantage to get a task accomplished! In this case, get Maya's jacket on to go home after the exciting party at Leif's place!