The Queen of Denmark Abdicates

Queen Margrethe II of our neighbour country Denmark will step down as monarch in January. She told the people of Denmark about this in her New Year’s Speech today. She has been monarch since 1972, when she replaced her father upon his death.

It is sad that a Queen abdicates, no matter why. She will be replaced with her oldest son, who will become King. Humans do not have the order of dogs, where the highest ranking female always rules. 

I wish the Queen and all the dogs and humans of Denmark well, with this change. 

Despicable Crime

An old woman in Malmo in the south of Sweden has been released from custody by the police, but is still a suspect of crime. She was caught putting pieces of dough on the ground, with shards of glass in the dough. Pieces of dough with glass in them have been a hazard for dogs in Malmo since 2020. It is possible that the criminal behind all of these events have now been caught. We hope the police can tie the woman to many of these events, and that this will never occur again once she is in prison. It is such a despicable crime, to try to hurt dogs in this way. 

Thaw

Crackers were not the only thing bothering our sleep last night. It was thaw, and snow tumbled down from our roof with loud noises.

It is still a lot of snow on the ground. The forecast says it will be freezing temperatures again soon. We will surely have a white New Year’s Celebration. This is good. 

Crackers

Once again, it has started, many days before New Year’s Night. Crackers have been heard many times around us today. 

Some wildlife are afraid of crackers. Some dogs too – though, luckily, none of us. 

It is so unnecessary to fire crackers day in and day out around the change of years. It is based on old superstition, that crackers would scare away demons and other evil doers. It is also an expensive, short joy, for those who like it. 

If people would just keep to the tradition, and fire crackers at midnight on New Year’s Night, I could understand it. The current trend is just stupid and should stop. 

Fire

It is cold outside, which makes it colder inside. We do have an insulated house, but it does not prevent all heat from escaping.

This morning, Daniel lit a fire in the stove in the living room. Needless to say, this quickly became the warmest room in the house. We all gathered there to enjoy the warmth. Some of the warmth spread into the adjacent rooms, which is good, but the living room was the most comfortable room throughout the day. 

Dogs are lucky to have humans, who control fire on our behalf. 

Second Day of Christmas

It is the second day of Christmas, and there are still Christmas treats to get. 

After dinner, we got to pre-rinse the dishes, like always. It is a chore all of us dogs take seriously. However, everyone of us left the strong mustard that was left on Daniel’s plate. Strong spices are not for us. Apart from the mustard, the Christmas food that we have got has been terrific. Meatballs are great the year round, but especially at Christmas, somehow. Life is nice. 

Shiba Meme Monument

There is now a life size statue, a monument, of a Shiba in Japan who became famous for her picture in the first dog memes on the Internet. 

I am sure that if Hailey or Polly would still have written this blog, they would have told you about it. Probably in a better way than I can. Do follow the link, if you want to know more. It is an interesting text to read. 

Merry Christmas!

We were busy celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve, so here is a little late Merry Christmas to all the readers of this blog! (I am sorry I missed to post on Christmas Eve.)

Christmas Candy

Daniel made some Christmas candy tonight. It is a tradition that he makes this candy, marsipanfjux. 

You need:

Almond paste,

Raisins, 

Chocolate.

Cut the almond paste in pieces, put raisins in, form it to pieces of candy in the way you like, melt the chocolate, and dip the pieces of candy in the chocolate. 

Of course, dogs should not eat chocolate. We got some pork instead. We like pork better, anyway. 

Cleaning

Christmas Eve is on Sunday. Daniel is off from work today. We have all engaged in cleaning the house for Christmas. We hope it will turn out great on Christmas. 

Pepe Came Home

Pepe has been away for a week. He came back home today. He refuses to give us much details about how it has been.

When Pepe said, however, that we may get to know in about two months, we think we understood. He has probably been to see another bitch, who has been in heat. We will have to see what comes out of this.

Viola hopes we will not hear anything in two months. It might be so, time will tell. 

Holidays

When Daniel came home from work today, it was the end of his last work day this year. He has vacation the rest of this week, and the work days next week. This is great, it means that he will be at home with us much more. It will be a good Christmas. 

Twice Is the Charm

Daniel worked from home today. He gave us food at noon, when he had lunch himself.

Paula was at home in the evening, when Daniel went grocery shopping. She gave us food then. We did not tell her Daniel had already given us a lot of food earlier in the day. Otherwise, we would just have had a few treats. 

Twice is the charm, especially when it comes to food. 

Pre-Christmas Traditions of Finland

In Finland, they have a lot of festivities before Christmas. Strangely enough, this article about it says nothing about the great dog show that usually takes place in Helsinki in December. Paula and Daniel have been there some years and enjoyed it. Perhaps we will go there some year in the future too. We will have to see. 

Third Sunday of Advent

It is the third Sunday of Advent, the time of the year when we look forward to the coming of Christ. We celebrate Christmas Eve next Sunday, which is also the fourth and final Sunday of Advent. It may seem strange that the fourth Sunday of Advent is on the day when we celebrate Christmas. It is not, however. I have learned today that the real first day of Christmas is Christmas Day, but that Swedes have celebrated on the Eve of Christmas night for a very long time. Traditions are nice, even though you do not understand the origin of all of them. 

Thaw

It is thaw. The forecast says it will be many degrees above the freezing point this weekend. This is crazy, with the many, cold winter days we have had. 

We still have hope for a white Christmas.

Pepe Went Away

Pepe went away. We do not know for how long, but he will be in the vicinity of Köping, where we all were for a week this summer. It was nice people there and a nice place, so I am sure Pepe will have a good time.

Before Pepe left, he said he knew why he would go. He did not want to tell us, though. I wonder if he will tell us when he comes back. We will see. 

St. Lucia

Our breed, the Chihuahua, comes from a Catholic country. There, they often celebrate saints. There is just one true celebration of a saint in the Protestant country where we live, Sweden. It is this day, the 13 December, when we celebrate St. Lucia. She was a saint from Sicily in the south of Europe. The origin of the celebrations is in the 18th century, when Lucia night was the winter solstice night, thus the longest night of the year. When Sweden changed from the Julian calendar to the current Gregorian calendar, the winter solstice moved, but the Lucia celebrations continued to grow. We have had a St. Lucia celebration here at home. It was fun. 

Late

It is strange how late you can turn out to be. My blog entry for yesterday was not published until today. I do not know why this is. The blog service may be to blame, but Viola and Pepe claimed I was the one who was too late. I refuse to aknowledge any such fault. Life is good anyway. 

Daniel

 Daniel has his name day today. 

Our cat Malin had her yesterday. 

I am usually called Piffy, but I also go under the name Paulina. This means I have a name day. You have to figure out which day this is yourself. 

Dog Show

Daniel came home this evening after a weekend in Stockholm. He worked at the largest annual dog show in Sweden, which is always held in Stockholm in December. He had fun, he said, but was happy to be home. We were equally happy to have him home. Dog shows are important, but it is always better to have your humans at home. Now, the whole family is at home again, and everything is fine. 

Strange

It is sometimes strange how IT equipment work. I believed I opened up a news site in another window than this blog, but it turned out it was in the same window, so the blog seemed to disappear. Viola claimed I must have done something wrong. She may be right, that it was my own fault. It posed no danger, it was just a little annoying. I opened up the blog again and got inspiration for this blog entry. Life is quite all right. 

A Lot of Snow

Daniel had to go out this morning to use the shovel on a lot of snow. Even though all of this snow may soon disappear in a thaw, it is a good thing to get it out of our way. Otherwise, some may be left to freeze again and become ice. 

It is fun to jump around in the deep snow. This is an advantage of being a small dog, snow is more often deep and fun. 

Snow

It is not as cold outside anymore. More snow has fallen. It is still temperatures below the freezing point, but the forecast says it might be thaw tomorrow and in the weekend. We hope not. We are dreaming of a white Christmas. Even if the current snow would disappear, new snow may fall. Time will tell. 

Independence Day

We celebrate Finland’s independence day today. On the 6 December 1917, Finland became independent from Russia. Any independence from Russia is well worth celebrations. Finland is a good neighbour of Sweden, her independence from Russia is even more worthy of celebrations than most would be. In an ideal world, Finland would never have become part of Russia in 1809, but would have continued to be part of Sweden. It is still way better with an independent Finland than a Finland as part of Russia. 

Happy independence day, Finland! 

Neutral Competitors?

There has been calls for athletes from Russia and Belarus to be able to compete in the next Olympic Games in 2024. This would be under a neutral flag and just for individual athletes. We have discussed it here at home and we are against it. If boycotts should have effect, they should be without exceptions. We hope the IOC refuses. If great athletes want to compete, let them move to democratic countries, become citizen there, and compete for them. 

Really Cold

It is really cold outside. Even the cats prefer to stay mostly indoors. We are lucky to have a warm house to live in and an even warmer bed to sleep in. 

The weather forecast says it may be much warmer, perhaps even thaw, in a few days. We would like warmer weather, but not that warm. It would be nice if this snow would stay over Christmas. A white Christmas would be nice. 

Advent

The advent chandeliers are up and shining. We have this tradition in Sweden to have chandeliers with seven arms of lights, electric, in the windows from the first Sunday in advent to the last day of Christmas. They look like the seven arm Jewish menorahs, and are probably inspired by those. They are normally angled, with the central electric candle above the others, however. When these lights go up, we know that the count down to Christmas has started. We are looking forward to it with great anticipation. Advent is nice. 

Christmas Lunch

Paula and Daniel were at an early Christmas lunch today. This lunch was hostel by the regional kennel club, where they are both members of the board. While this is a good and important organisation, I still think having a Christmas lunch even before the first Sunday in advent tomorrow is a bit too early.

We got food when Paula and Daniel came back home. It was far from a Christmas lunch, but as you can understand from what I just wrote, I think this was just as well. 

One Twelfth Left

December starts today and one twelfth of the year is left. This year has gone by quickly. It seems to me time flies faster when I write this daily blog. 

It is soon Christmas with a lot of great food. This will be good.