I'm back home after celebrating Christmas with my Dad. The weather this Christmas was rather peculiar. After two Christmases with lots -and I mean LOTS- of snow there were no snow in sight this year. That in itself is not unheard of, statistically every other Christmas in Helsinki is snowless, but this time the whole end of the year has been unusually warm, mostly a few degrees above freezing and it's snowed only twice, I think, and even then it was very little snow which melted almost immediately. And today we had a storm with highest winds in a decade! In some parts of the country the storm damaged powerlines and at the moment over 160 000 households are without electricity. Not fun at all. Luckily here we didn't have any powercuts.
Well, Christmas was fun. As I said I spent it with my Dad here in Helsinki. He only lives on the other side of the city, so I did not have to travel far. :) In the evening of Dec 23 we decorated the Christmas tree. I had bought a Bûche de Noël and then late in the evening of the 23rd I realised that I had forgot the cake home! We had to go and get it in the Christmas Eve morning.
Dec 24, Christmas Eve, is when we celebrate here in Finland. After driving to my place to get the Bûche de Noël we went to the cemetery to bring candles to the graves of our loved ones. Later we had a nice traditional Christmas dinner with some excellent 11 year old French wine I had been saving for some special occation, but then decided that this Christmas was special enough. :) Finnish Christmas dishes are pretty heavy, and after the meal both I and my Dad ended up taking a nap! :) I woke up just in time to walk to the beautiful 15th century St. Laurence Church for a midnight mass. Usually we open presents after dinner, but this year we did it only after I returned from the mass. So, we ended the Christmas Eve opening presents and watching the midnight mass from the Vatican on TV.
I had wished for All Clear by Connie Willis and I guess, I had been good, as I got it. :) I also got two vintage nonfiction books about French history.
Christmas Day was spent, as always, relaxing, reading, eating, watching TV, reading, eating, eating, reading... :) Today was a bit more active as we went to play tennis for two hours and that was just perfect after all that Christmas food!
It's been a while since I posted a Random Books post. So, here comes part M-O:
Motherless Daughters -The Legacy of Loss by Hope Edelman
If I were to make a list of the most important books in my life, this one would be on that list. Edelman, who herself lost her mother to cancer when she was seventeen, interviewed hundreads of motherless women and then wrote this book about what it means to grow up without a mother and how being motherless affects a woman's life. My mother died when I was 16 and although I thought I had recovered from the loss well, 10 years after her death my loss hit me very hard. It was devastating to realise that I could never talk to my mother as one adult to another, that she never got to know the grown up me. It was at that time that I read Motherless Daughters and what a revelation it was! I did not agree with everything Edelman wrote, but it was very healing to realise I was not alone in my thoughts, that it was something that was common to many motherless women. I don't know if I will ever reread Motherless Daughters. It's enough that it sits there on my bookshelf. It's enough that it exists. Edelman's book helped me really grow up and put my loss in perspective. It helped me heal.
The Nun's Story by Kathryn Hulme
I have mentioned before that I have a soft spot for novels about nuns.:) If you were to read only one novel about nuns, this could be it (the other candidate for the spot would be In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden). And if we talk about movies then The Nun's Story with Audrey Hepburn as Sister Luke is the number one nun movie ever made!
The book tells the story of a strong-willed Belgian girl, Gabrielle, who becomes a nun in a nursing order some time during the first half of the 20th century. The depiction of pre Vatican II convent life makes fascinating reading and Gabrielle's road to become Sister Luke, her quest to become a good religious, her trials and tribulations, her doubts make an unforgettable story. This is a must reread book for me. :)
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
I have already talked about Orlando here and am not going to repeat what I've already written. Suffice to say that Orlando is one of my all time favorite books.
I hope everyone had happy holidays!
No comments:
Post a Comment