A thought hit me the other day while watching Popular Music from Vittula (which is by the way a great movie). A scene in the movie showed an entire town leaving their house to watch when the town's roads are asphalted for the first time. Everyone was excited. It made me a bit sad thinking about how few things excite us today. We certainly wouldn't go out on the street to see it asphalted. We seem a bit numbed by the excess of everything. Very few things make us react.

Christmas this year was special in many ways. It was Silja's first Christmas and despite the fact that she doesn't really understand I made sure that the Icelandic Santa put something in the shoe she left in the window, and that we took photos of her "opening" few presents. She of course was mostly preoccupied with eating the wrapping paper but all the same she will hopefully be able to look back at the photos one day and enjoy them. And I got carried away thinking about my childhood Christmases and the small things I used to enjoy back them.

One of the things I remember about Christmas was the smell of things. The smell of Christmas food, the smell of apples, the smell of those shiny Christmas decorations, the smell of the few precious Quality street candy pieces you got, the smell of clementines (previously known as mandarines) and the smell of pine. Then there was the joy of decorating the Christmas tree with unmatched Christmas ornaments and the joy of opening advent calenders with, believe it or not, pictures.

Today there is excess of everything. People buy new ornaments to make sure all the colors are matched on the tree, apples are used as decorations (didn't see anyone eat one this Christmas), you can eat a whole box of Quality street candy if you want and by the time Christmas comes everyone is sick and tired of clementines. Imagine trying to give an advent calender with just pictures?!? The smell is still there but who has time to smell that poor apple that sits in a bowl on the table. There is so much else going on. Other more expensive and shiny apples have taken over. Those unfortunately don't have any smell that you can remember in 20 years time. I hope I can teach my daughter the joy of small things and that Christmas wont just become the time of the year where she speeds through opening her presents not really stopping to notice what was in them. I fear that this will be difficult. It seem that we have lost the ability to enjoy the small things.

So at least this is a small reminder to myself. Enjoy the small things in life. It is a real pity that I have become allergic to apples (the silver ones as well) but at least I can remember to smell it every Christmas in the future! There is my first New Year's Resolution! Now I need to stop blogging to work on the rest...