The biggest thing about Christmas has always been the Christmas break. First, there were the school days and the break that was weeks long, that sometimes felt almost too long.
Then, in the university, it was suddenly even longer, with the lectures ending in early December so, with careful planning, I could take off to my parents’ by mid-December the latest, after my last exam, and then return in mid-January.
My salad days.
Sometimes things don’t go as planned. Sometimes you just have to make new plans.
So what? So you make new plans.
This is the From The Desk of Risto Pakarinen 2017 advent calendar. Behind every door, you’ll find something related to the 1980s
Every time somebody in Wife’s family gets a present that is shaped like a box, just after s/he has torn the wrapping paper off it but before s/he opens the actual box, somebody will say, “oooh, did somebody pull a mormor?”
Mormor is Swedish for maternal grandmother, and pulling a mormor is a reference to the fact that Wife’s mormor often gave presents that were packed inside boxes that were just the right size for the purpose, but wasn’t the box in which the actual present came. For example, cookie cutter may have been in a razor box, creating confusion and hilarity.
We all have them, and we all know Xmas wouldn’t be Xmas without them. They make us laugh, they make us see each other in a little different light, and we’re proud of them, every single one of them.
I’m not talking about opinions.
I’m talking about all those wonderful, hideous, gorgeous, ugly, weird, beautiful, and “interesting” pieces of Xmas art we produce in kindergarten and at school.
This is the From The Desk of Risto Pakarinen 2017 advent calendar. Behind every door, you’ll find something related to the 1980s
Believe or not, I love Xmas shopping. I mean, I may moan about the stress and I may get angry at other people in the stores, but I like to go out and buy stuff to others. Also, believe it or not, I’m great at it.
Because I like buying presents to others, I often seem to get pretty good presents, which obviously raises the bar for the next year, but with a little bit of luck, I seem to stumble on nice presents every year.
Except this year, but then again, I say that every year.
Long day driving. No time to write. Fortunately, somebody else wrote this.
This is the From The Desk of Risto Pakarinen 2017 advent calendar. Behind every door, you’ll find something related to the 1980s
Did someone say “Eighties”?
This is the From The Desk of Risto Pakarinen 2017 advent calendar. Behind every door, you’ll find something related to the 1980s
If I had to choose another profession, if I couldn’t be a writer guy, I would want to be a ghostbuster. Even today, as the middle-aged man living in a Stockholm suburb that I am, a part of me is walking around keeping an eye out on sliming ghosts and when nobody can see, I do the Peter Venkman hop on the mike lane to the mall, and in my mind, I tell people to “back off, man, I’m a scientist” even though I’m really not.
“Ghostbuster”, the word itself, didn’t practically exist before 1984, when the movie about three buddies who set up shop to catch ghosts in New York. It opened in the US in June, but as always, us Finns had to wait a little longer to see it.
It had its Finnish premiere on Dec 14, 1984 – 33 years ago to the day.
When people ask me why my English sounds so American – and sometimes they do – my answer is always the same: “Too many episodes of Happy Days and rock’n’roll.” That’s what I told the English gentleman in Oxford who was the first one to ask me that, and that’s the answer I’ve stuck to ever since.
Now, we both know that there’s no such thing as “too many episodes of Happy Days” or even rock’n’roll but it is true that I was raised on TV.
