Hoisting the Glänsa 2008

This year's Glänsa party went off without a hitch. (For those of you who don't know about the Glänsa tradition, this was the Third Annual Excuse For A Secular Holiday Party Based Upon Ikea Products And Faux Scandanavian Tradition. Last year's account is here, with a description of the preparations here.) We had 48 guests, aged from 19 months to sprightly senior citizen. The party ran strong, without a break in the constant flow of guests, from 5 in the afternoon until midnight.

Our Jülebord almost literally groaned: we served a ham, gravlax, Swedish meatballs, a Swedish chilled veggie salad with herring, a shrimp salad plate, dark rye bread, lingonberry bread, banana bread, muffins, apple cake, chocolate pie, and sesame crackers (all of this was homemade). Also a cheese plate, hotdogs wrapped in crescent roll dough (for the kids), and cruditês. Guests brought an assortment of other things -- usually desserts of homemade cookies or candy, but also a large, delicious salad, and another batch of Swedish meatballs. Amazingly, there were virtually no leftovers.

We also served the traditional Moose Milk (and as usual, ran out about half way through the evening), Akvavit and wine. The liqueurs I've been making were a big hit -- as much for the conversations around them as for the flavor themselves (so far, only two people have liked the Italian Green Walnut Nocino, which tastes more like a digestif -- bitters -- than an aperitif or a cordial).

The real preparation for the party was the house. HemKarl (aka HomoDommi when not fake Swedish) had intended his dining room mural to be finished. It wasn't, but it is still quite beautiful, and impressive, and mostly, really fun to watch evolve. I took on the kitchen -- not a remodel, but just sprucing it up. When the rest of the household went to visit friends in another state for Thanksgiving, I stayed behind and cleaned out kitchen cupboards, rearranged, made curtains for the window, and updated the utility shelving unit we've been using for an island with a butcherblock countertop and curtains around the base. I did this as a surprise, and after they got home, HemKarl kept the momentum going by quickly painting all the walls in the room with some leftover paint from another project -- beige, not a color any of us like in the kitchen, but it's still a vast improvement.

Also, HemKarl made a new swag for the living room walls, something that goes with the mural a bit better, of found-pinecones and little red beads. That, with our new furniture in the living room, makes us actually look "grown-up" in the words of HemKvinna.