As a child I remember the nativity scene my mother put up every Christmas. It was a dark brown wooden house, a baby Jesus and his parents, shepherds, sheep, and the three wise men. And a star. It stood there in the living room even though we somehow forgot it existed, but today it reminds me of more traditionally celebrated Christmasses.

As an adult I've never been much for Christmas decorations even though, most years, we've had a tree. The children have become used to travelling a lot and the period before Christmas has been the one we have focused on here at home. We have baked and made candy. We have enjoyed the smells of the approaching holidays and planned Christmas presents for everyone. This year's Christmas will no doubt mean a lot of travelling as well, since we have family in all kinds of places, but I have nevertheless decided to buy our own nativity scene from Serholt. It was extremely difficult to get hold of last year, but now it's in the stores again. I just found the subdued white and gold so beautiful and I think it will function as a very good reminder of the Christmas spirit, the reason why we celebrate Christmas. We'll probably be putting it up in mid December in order to have some time to enjoy it. :)

The image is a montage with photos from House of Hedda and Design, Photography and Fun.

I have finished Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence and it was truly amazing. I enjoyed every minute of reading it.

In order to explore a completely different genre, and explore something that is highly relevant these days, I decided to turn to President Barack Obama's account of his family's history, Dreams from My Father. I've only read a few pages yet, but it is very interesting to notice how clearly his voice and manner of speaking carries over to the written medium. I'm sure this will be an equally interesting and enjoyable read, albeit very different from Rushdie's trickster tale.

Yeah, I know... It does feel weird to think about Christmas at the moment, but for the sixth year in a row Blossa has the annual variant of glögg. Glögg is simply the Swedish equivalent of mulled wine, traditionally drunk together with gingerbread, almonds and raisins. This year's taste will be clementine, which does indeed sound festive enough. Another addition to the glögg family is the glöggs flavoured with lingonberry and orange. These will be recurring items together with the three-star cognac and rum versions. All of a sudden I'm somehow looking forward to autumn and winter.

Images from Blossa.

This image, although taken on a previous occasion, sums up what happened last night in Budapest in a very good way. The football game between Hungary and Sweden ended 1-2 after a far too exciting ending. Olof Mellberg, in the background, scored the first after only eight minutes and Zlatan Ibrahimovich managed to score Sweden's second goal in the very last seconds of the game. Everyone, except the Hungarians of course, were ecstatic.

I'm not a huge football fan myself, but it was indeed fun to see the teamwork and collaboration in yesterday's Swedish team. Let's hope they will continue to play like that. It would be great to be able to see two Scandinavian teams, Denmark and Sweden, qualify to the world championships next year.

I'm in the middle of a cold at the moment and doing as little physically as possible. Reading is, however, the perfect thing to do and Salman Rushdie happens to be one of my favourite authors. The Enchantress of Florence was released in 2008 but I haven't had time to read it until now. At the moment I'm about 150 pages into it and I have to say that I'm definitely not disappointed. As with most of Rushdie's novels, it seems as if it comes with vibrant colours and fragrances, as if the text is not simply black letters on a white background, as if there is an entire world opening up before me. Apart from occational sneezing, I tend to forget that I'm ill.

I watched the movie on television last night and kept thinking about the narrow range of behaviour that is acceptable to men — back then in the 60's and 70's but perhaps also today.

It becomes very clear that the wives of Ennis Del Mar (the late Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) find it difficult to except the behaviour of their men. Their reasons for this seem to be slightly different, however. Del Mar's wife Alma (Michelle Williams) knows for certain that her husband has a sexual relationship with a man and her feelings of abandonment and loss are both understandable and expected. And it is a lonely burden she carries. Homosexuality (or in this case bisexuality) is clearly not something that ought to be talked about in the society in which they live. Nevertheless, and perhaps partly because of that, she does not leave Del Mar until she feels that he prioritizes his love for Twist higher than her and their two daughters. For Lureen (Anne Hathaway), Twist's wife, the most important thing seems to be that her husband is "a real man" in every respect. She does not seem to require closeness. She does not seem to need him financially. She seems to be married to him simply because she is supposed to be married. The only time in the movie when she clearly approves of his actions is when he tells her own father off, when he stands his ground as the "man of the house" in front of their son and her parents. This is also an incident that seems to put her father at ease, since he has had his doubts about the manliness of his son-in-law.

It is sad to see how all of the characters in the movie are stuck in rigid structures and modes of behaviour. Society does not approve of deviation, but at the same time it is very easy to become deviant since there are not many possible roles to choose between.

The image was found here.

Today has been the first day this year when it really feels like autumn and it does feel rather sad. A knitted cardigan has been a must since I seem to have a cold coming on, and it also made me want to check out the new autumn collections at various webshops.

A few things, in colours that I love, caught my eye: A blue dress from La Redoute, a black skipper jacket from the same place, a petrol scarf from Esprit, a Pilgrim necklace from Le Shop, a pair of black leather boots from La Redoute, a black leather belt from Esprit, a knitted cardigan from Lindex, and, last but not least, a blue knitted dress from H&M.