Christmas celebration my way. A weekend off

Dear Johan took me to a short trip to the heart of our county Dalarna, that means Tällberg by the lake of Siljan. The surroundings around the lake are very beautiful, with mountains, forests, meadows and small villages with old houses.

Tällberg is very popular and have several high quality hotels. We stayed at Dalecarlia. Below is the morning view from our hotel window.

The hotel has lots of fireplaces around the lobby and restaurant. 

As indoor shoes I brought my Åsa Westlund, kurbits wooden heels. I have two from this collection called There goes the neighbourhood. I use them very sparely as the painting is fragile. There were gold streaks on them once as well but they are gone now.

This is the hotel. Looking up at the building surrounded by a winterlandscape it has a very "the Shining" feel over it. 

We spent the saturday walking around the village where a Christmas fair was going on. All the crafts and design stores were open.

The tradition is that if you decorate for midsummer, those decorations must sit the whole year until next summer. That's the reason why you can see a maypole dressed in brown leaves in the middle of the winter. The driveways are also decorated with honour birch arcs with dry leaves beside the ordinary outdoor christmas decorations. 

We bought a pair of mugs for ourselves. I picked the one with the horns to use at work. The potter had a fun combination of traditional, medeival and morbid style of the pottery. 

Kids playing with sleighs on a yard in front of a old house.

Another two maypoles left.

At one of the places they were selling Dalahorses and you could buy one and paint it yourself. And that is what we did. Johans is the one at the left, mine is the one at the right. They look both like traditional Nusnäs horses but with a personal twist. Every village has it's own kind of horse. These were once kids toys.

 On the way back to the hotel the christmastree at the square was dressed with football sized ornaments, they needed a lift for that work. You can see the contrasting maypole in the background with brown leaves. 
They was later going to have ring dance around the three, I know Swedes are strange people.

I bought a 3 yard of ribbon and a bottle of quack doctors remedy. Its anis and fennel couch drops that works fine for a sore throat.

We took a moment to watch the sunset over the mountains and the lake on the walk back.

 The afternoon was spent at the spa down the hill. It had a yacuzzi, outdoor pool with hot water, saunas and an indoor swimmingpool. We skipped any treatment and just relaxed, bathed. After some resting at our room we ate a fabulous three course dinner. I tried some new tastes, like saffron pannacotta with liqorice crisp.

 The icy road back home

 Usually I'm busy with birthday and christmas celebrations. But I think I needed this weekend. I had some tough moments at work and is generally stressed. I could have stayed at least another day just lazing around.
This is a post in Ms Misantropias Christmas challenge. Hop over to her and read her posts.

Back home I fixed Oskars christmas calendar. 24 packages (not all of them here) with assorted things inside.

Do you have those calendars in other countries? We have the annual tv-calendar, a childrens tv show, new one every year. 

Next weekend will be my 40's birhtday party another step from the yearly traditions, a little bigger party with guests the whole weekend. I'm so looking forward to it.