Tag: Holidays

Family

On July 25, 2010

You can pick your nose.
And you can pick your friends.
But you can’t pick your friends’ nose.
That rhyme has rattled around in my head ever since I was a little kid. I don’t know why. So much other stuff doesn’t seem to be able to stay in there but that little ditty does. I always thought it was funny for some reason. The idea of picking one’s friends. It’s not the same with family. You can’t pick your family. They become attached to you the moment you are born. And they follow you for the rest of their lives. When I was much, much younger I used to wish that we could also pick family. One goes through a certain period of one’s life when FAMILY is either embarrassing, annoying or just plain irritating. It isn’t until you move far away from them that you realize just how important FAMILY really is.

Julbord (or smorgasbord to you on the other side of the duckpond)

By Hilarie

On December 29, 2009

In Uncategorized

Before the new year arrives and the Christmas holiday becomes a memory, I thought I would talk a little bit about the Swedish custom of the Julbord. To my friends here in Sweden, Ok, you dont have to read this. You already know what Im talking about. But to those of you still back in my mother country, you might find this interesting.

The Swedish word smörgåsbord is a combination of the word smörgås which means sandwich (or literally “buttered”) and bord, which means table; so a smörgåsbord is literally a sandwich table, which is a bit of an understatement since there is a lot more than sandwiches on it. The classic Swedish Julbord is a large smörgåsbord traditionally eaten with family and friends on Christmas Eve. From the beginning of December, most restaurants offer, for a fixed price, a Julbord dinner several times a day until just before Christmas. While they vary in size and price, these Julbords offer an astonishing selection of Swedish dishes. And if you go to eat Julbord with Swedish friends and family, it’s a good idea to know how to do it.

Another year older

By Hilarie

On December 26, 2009

In Uncategorized

A new year is fast approaching. That’s a good thing, I guess. A new beginning, new resolutions, a new start. All good things. It also means a new notch on our belt, another year older. I’m still not sure how I feel about that. Here’s something I wrote almost 7 years ago but being that its soon the eve of a new year I thought it appropriate to put it up on my blog now. Something to think about as we cross over that demarcation line that causes 2009 to change over to 2010. Happy New Year everyone!

I feel the need to rant a little. I want to start off by making something very clear – this whole thing about aging – I don’t like it, not one bit.

I haven’t been feeling so good lately. When I wake up in the morning, just getting my feet over the edge of the bed down to the floor takes an effort. And then I have to stand up! What a job! Walking’s OK, once I manage to bend down to buckle my shoes. I keep hoping that I don’t have to go uphill though. That’s a real bother! When I ride a bus, I generally get up and give my seat to any white haired old lady when there are no seats left. I figure that I have to set a good example for my 12-year-old son. But, I don’t know, they must have done something to those bus seats when I wasn’t looking because they are so hard to get up out of!

Being Jewish in Swedish

By Hilarie

On December 5, 2009

In Uncategorized

Once again this is something I wrote awhile ago, around 2004. In the years that have passed, my son has had his Bar Mitzvah and I now sit on the board of an organization called Progressive Judendom i Stockholm. We are working to bring Reform Judiasm to Stockholm. And the group of J.A.P.S. that formed all those years ago still (with some comings and goings) meet for holidays and other times. Our children are like cousins to each other and the adults in the group are more than just friends. They have become family.

An American Jew in Stockholm

It’s funny how things change the older one gets – one’s sense of immortality, one’s idea of how to live a good life, the color of one’s hair, the list of things that are important.

I’ve spent a long time living here in Stockholm. I’ve spent an even longer time being Jewish – pretty much from birth, actually. My parents were Jewish. Both sets of grandparents were also Jewish. All my family and the relatives around me were Jewish. But I didn’t grow up in a Jewish neighborhood. From the time I was 4 years old till I was 18, I lived in a small town in the middle of northern New Jersey. All through grammar school I was the only Jewish kid in my class. And if there were any Jewish kids in the large regional high school I attended, I didn’t know them. I always had to get special permission to be absent from school on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I then had to explain to my friends why I wasn’t in class. Getting permission wasn’t a problem and the explanations finally became routine but having to go through that process did contribute to making me feel different from all the rest.