This Week: Family Bonding

I think I must have an extra ordinary relationship with my family and my siblings. When talking to other people I realize that it is not something that is “a given”.
Sure, when we were kids we fought a lot, argued and were angry with each other, but we also had loads of fun.
I am the oldest, Sara is next in line and then the twin-brothers that came when I was 6½ and Sara was 3½ years old.
A full house!
I shared a room with my sister during our entire childhood and teenage years, and sure, sometimes we both REALLY wished that we had our own rooms, be sure of it. But, on other occasions it was great sharing.


The four of us in Finland...

Sometimes I wonder how my mom did it, or both my parents for that matter. However, it was my Mom that stayed home with us four little kids, and I am sure it was not an easy task.
She managed though, due to her enormous calmness and organization skills. She baked bread (almost) daily, there were so many times when we got home from school and the entire house smelled so lovely of cinnamon and cardamom rolls.
She managed to keep the house clean; all right it was messy but not dirty or filthy. She cooked dinners and fixed breakfasts. She knitted sweaters for us kids and she sewed some of our clothes.
I guess you have to be organized whether you want to or not with four kids. AND, the fact was that it was not only the four of us either, we had friends, too, of course, and they played at our house after school almost daily. Fun for us, but not so fun for my Mom, I am sure.

We had one car, a Volvo Amazon station wagon. Do you think we had car seats? That is right; we did NOT!! No, sometimes we would even sit back in the luggage area on long trips. Sometimes we slept back there on said long trips, or when we were on our way home from our parents friends on late Friday or Saturday nights.
That is how it was back in the 70’s…

So the siblings grew up, went to school, moved out, one moved to the US (you know who!) and one moved to the far north of Sweden, Umeå, that is Gunnar who was just here with his wife Kinn, as you all know. Two siblings stayed in Stockholm, or actually one stayed in within the Stockholm City Limits, my sister Sara. She lives within walking distance to my parents. Staffan lives right outside the city of Stockholm, in Järfälla County in a house they just bought out there.
Now all of us have kids, and we can all really appreciate all the hard work our parents put in raising us.
My parents have six grandkids and the seventh will join us this Christmas when Lisa will deliver a little baby boy!!!


Crowded dinner...Missing in picture: Karolina, Erik and Edvin

Yes, so these four siblings have a great time as soon as they get together!!!! It is something we all are looking forward to, and when we see each other it is nothing but joking and laughing and teasing around the clock!
We have our grand meeting place in Finland, in our beloved summer house where we all gather every summer together with out parents, and all our husbands , wives and kids! Now a clan of 16! Or let me re-phrase that: we are a clan of 18 including my Aunt and Grandmother, but in our house we are 16!!!
Sometimes people are asking if we’re not driving each other crazy. No, we don’t.
I guess that we might be an unusual crowd…

Now I just wish we could all get together for Christmas, but it will not happen this year…This year we will all be kind of spread out, but it will be fine too…because I know we will all have a great holidays any way!