Editor’s Note: “God Jul” is the Swedes “Merry Christmas”. Ann Sigford delights us with a follow up to her story “Christmas Eve on our Swedish Farm”. *** It’s 3:30 a.m. on Christmas Day — Jul in Swedish — and two alarm clocks have gone off in the otherwise silent yellow farmhouse. Two, just to be…
Editor’s Note: The image shows the Advent candles, a placemat with the tomte, and a saffron bun symbolizing the hoped for return of the sun. The author writes this delightful, charming story in present tense to invite you to join her. *** My husband Folke and I enjoyed 15 Christmas Eves on our farm. In…
Editor’s Note: Writer Ann Sigford joyfully embraces Mother Nature including one of her smallest beings, ants, in this delightful poem she spontaneously wrote upon catching sight of them. A smudge on the sidewalk catches my eye early, early Solstice morning. Town criers meet deep underground check the date, double check this is it, the earliest…
Long ago I worked at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, and through that job I got to know many interesting people. This is the story of one of them. The College sent me to Washington, D.C. On a free day, I decided to take a boat trip to see Mount Vernon. When I…
I’ve had a crush on Carl since I was a kid. I think my dad told me about him. I wished I could have met him, but he died before I could do that. But in his honor, I followed his trail all the way to Lapland, in the very far north of Sweden, and…
She was born in 1912, in a little Swedish town. She didn’t have it easy. Her mom died shortly after she was born, leaving her father with seven little daughters to feed and raise on a laborer’s salary. It was her mother’s sister, Julia and her husband, childless, who took in the waif and raised…
