I had some days earlier bought some Christmas presents for them. I wanted to give it to them on Christmas Eve……….but, i was so excited that I felt like exploding, so I gave it to them a bit early (I myself think that I’m good at keeping “secrets”, but not “surprises”)

Anyway, it was ‘Lucia’ that day and I was very excited about it all. I started to explain about Lucia and about our Swedish Christmas traditions. I even drew some pictures on the café napping’s to explain it all more clearly.
When I finished with my explanation Diana started to explain about her Slovakian Christmas traditions. (this was hilarious, I was either laughing so hard that my stomach was hurting or I was horrified and my expression just froze) XD
Here’s an example,
Diana: Well, we have almost the same. We have no “Lucia-day”, but on the 6/12 there’s a “Santa” that gives us Chocolate in our boots. He’s not the “real Santa”, but a fake one…..you can say that we have two “Santa’s”.
Me: Hahaha, You’re kidding me right?! XD
Diana: No
Me: He lays chocolate in your boots? That’s disgusting and how messy -_- XD
Diana: Well, you have to clean the boots first and then you put them in your room, next to the window. But if they aren’t shiny enough, you’ll receive a lump of coal in your boots.^^
Me: Hahaha, that’s so weird XD
Diana: And on Christmas Eve we don’t really receive the presents from “Santa”, but from Jesus^^
Me: O_O Jesus? Wait……do you mean the religious guy, half naked, long hair, beard and only wares a diaper? XD
Diana: Yes^^
(Our Swedish Santa usually comes to our house and gives presents to “kind children”. I could now visual a half starved and half naked Jesus coming to a Slovakian family-home to give Christmas presents. This sight was both horrifying and hilarious) O_O XD
I was laughing so hard on this point that I thought I was going to pee myself, it was so hilarious! XD
Anyway the misunderstanding was clarified soon after. It turns out that people don’t dress up as Jesus. Instead, they will close the doors to the living room, where the Christmas tree is and Jesus will then bring all the presents and lay them under the tree, when no one is looking.
(When I heard this, I was struck by a new laughing fit. I now imagined that a half starved and half naked Jesus breaks in through the window, brings the presents and then jumps out through the window again) XD
I drew this on one of the napping’s and this caused Karina and Diana to burst into laughter too.
Diana: Hahaha, It looks like a tramp that breaking in, how scary XD
Karina: you drew the beard wrongly, Jesus didn’t have beard like that^^

Diana continued to explain about it all and another thing she told us about was that they don’t really eat on Christmas Eve. They would rather starve that day, cause if you eat too much then you’ll see THE BIG GOLDEN PIG! (kkkkkk, all of this is so weird) XD
Me: Diana, all of this is crazy XD
Diana: Hahaha, if you think our Christmas is crazy then you should hear about our Ester. On that day, guys will beat girls with whips and pour cold water on them. The girls will then give the guys chocolate and money, because they just got a good beating.
Me: …………O_O what!?…….seriously, you’re kidding? O_O
Diana: No, but I don’t like that tradition -_-
(I now leaned myself forward and placed my hands over Diana’s)
Me: Poor Diana, how did you survive all this year’s T_T what a horrible tradition!
(Apparently the tradition started when Jesus died. He disappeared/came to heaven on Easter and the women became very happy when this happened. Their belief in religion became even stronger……but the solders didn’t like this so they beat the women to punish their “belief/happiness” ……emmm, I think @_@ …..or it was something like that)

Diana: We have another tradition where we burn the “winter woman” to celebrate the beginning of spring
Karina: We have that too!^^
Me: What! It sounds like a “witch hunt”, how horrible! O_O
Karina: No, it’s not a real woman, but like a “scare-crow”^^
Me: puhh~ -_-
Diana: It’s so funny that we have the same tradition. Do you celebrate “the death of the cello” too?^^
Karina: No -_-
Me:………..The death of the cello? -_- XD
Diana: yes, we burn a dead cello^^

Seriously……..the traditions all over the world are so weird @_@
I myself think that Sweden’s weirdest celebration is “Midsummer”.(I’m mostly thinking of our maypole and the ‘little frog dance’) XD
Telling this story to foreigners always brings a lot of laughter^^

We had a great time at the coffee shop. Karina had to go home early, but Diana and I decided to go to a karaoke room. Kkkk, I sang ABBA’s Mama Mia and lots more

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“In 2012 the export of “Gazprom “in the European markets will be higher than this year, Miller predicted by stating that this will happen at the expense of the quantities passing through already placed in service pipeline “Nord Stream”.

In November, European consumers were paying 446 dollars per 1,000 cubic meters of gas and exported by the company amounts to the European market amounted to 152 billion cubic meters. Earlier this month the management of the company forecast that the growth will be 8 percent to 164 billion cubic meters.

Serbian state gas company and “Gazprom” discovered underground gas storage within the future gas pipeline “South Stream”. Repository in the northern city of Banat yard has a capacity of 450 million cubic meters of gas. It will be managed by a joint venture established in 2009, of which “Gazprom” holds 51%, and “Srbijagas” 49%.

It is expected that the project “South Stream” to be completed by 2015. By it Russian gas will pass from Russia under the Black Sea to Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary and Western Europe.