Merry Christmas, From Finland

This was the first Christmas, I have spent in Finland without any of my family members. The first year, my brother came to visit me. The second year, my sister & brother came to visit me. The third year, the Finn & I went to California to be with my family. Finally, this year, the Finn's mom invited us to go there, to Anjalankoski and spend it with her and her sons.

So, we packed up the gifts, extra food, the cat and the dog and headed out there. It is about a one & half hours drive from Helsinki. We ended up driving part of the way in the dark which really sucked. Much of the way is on a two lane highway without any road lights. Additionally, there are many Russian trucks driving along the road and if that weren't enough, there is the danger of a moose running on the road. During this time of the year the sun is setting around 3pm and by 6pm it is pitch black.
The family celebrated Christmas much in the same way as my Mexican-American family do. We have a dinner and open the presents on Christmas eve. The traditional meal consists of casseroles (carrot, sweet potato, rutabega) and meat (roast pork, smoked salmon). My palate is geared to salty foods, so these are too appetizing to me. I had mashed potatoes, corn, cauliflower, no salmon, and I heated my pork. I am used to eating tamales, rice, beans, & the traditional yankee meal (turkey, mashed potatoes stuffing, pumpkin pie, cranberries.)
The activities started with me making riisipuuro (rice porridge) which we ate for lunch. Later, we had päiväkahvi (afternoon coffee) with pulla and cakes. Around 6pm we went to the cemetary to leave a candle at the grave of the Finn's father. That graveyard was packed. There must have been a hundred people roaming around lighting candles. We stumbled to the gravestone and the Finn's mom lit the candle and layed out some Xmas tree branches for decoration. It was so dark at that time but there were so many lit candles, like a sea of lights.
We went back to the flat, watched some tv shows and heated the oven. When the joululaatikot were ready, I heated my food and we ate. After that, we opened the gifts. For the rest of the evening, we played games, watched tv and nibbled on cakes. This is a film I made about that experience: Merry Christmas, From Finland. Clicking on that hyperlink will begin the movie. To download it, right click and select Save As. Hmm. I am having technical difficulties with this right now. So, I uploaded it to youtube, and that seems to be taking time to be available.