🎶 Let it SNOW 🎶

For years I found myself singing a very famous Christmas song: ‘Let it snow’.

Come rain or shine (or heatwave!), I sang this heartwarming song about weather conditions I quite frankly found pretty horrendous. At least when it concerned snow in the Netherlands! Imagine soggy feet and temperatures just below freezing. Slippery pavements and melting piles of gray-ish nastiness. After a few days it’s just a wet wasteland. Yuck.

So I never understood why that particular song stuck with me. Didn’t even like it that much, to be completely honest … 

As it turns out, this song has prophetic qualities! You might know, we have moved to the North of Sweden where winters are truly WINTERS! With lots of snow (up to two meters!) and temperatures way below freezing. 

We arrived in mid October and normally the snowfall starts somewhere in December. We figured we got ourselves a couple of weeks to prepare: buy proper clothing, get sufficient snow-removal-gear and so on.

But not this year!

Oh no, this year the Weather Gods had heard me singing a certain song for ages and decided to listen to my prayer. Snow came (very!) early this year. As in, 1 ½ weeks after we moved in, it started snowing for real. We got our first half a meter of snow over a couple of days!

Fortunately, Martijn had checked the weather forecast, so we had at least bought some great boots and many layers of clothing. But we only had one tiny shovel and a 120 meter driveway. Sooooo … we were snowed in! Welcome to Sweden!

It is absolutely magical though … I have to say, I really love the snow! Snow in Sweden is a completely different experience than the soggy hell it was in the Netherlands. The crispness of the air and the complete silence it brings: everything is covered with a velvet blanket and the stress of life is muted. When the sun shines, we are surrounded by tiny little shiny crystals and I never knew there are so many different shades of blue, white and gray. 

Did I mention I love the light?

Even though the days are getting shorter superfast, the light here in the North is amazing. The snow and ice cast reflections and amplify what little light there is. And at night we have no light pollution so stars are everywhere. The light of the moon can be so bright it even casts shadows!

And … we’ve got Northern Lights! Lady Aurora is very gracious this year and to witness this marvel above our house brings tears to my eyes.

The winter also invites us to slow down big time. We feel we have a lot of stress stored in our bodies after years and years in an introvert-unfriendly society. Being snowed in with a cozy fire, books, great food, our guitars and studio gear is actually a very nice thing to experience. 

So, I honestly can say that singing ‘Let it snow’ was the best thing I ever did!

Also, thanks to a very helpful neighbor, we can get to the main road again if we need to!

Not that we WANT to, if possible 😅