Christmas in Lapland – part II

The next day was Christmas Eve which is when Finns typically celebrate Christmas. We didn’t really have any plans to celebrate Christmas except eat some Christmassy foods in the evening.

Short day of skiing

On Friday there were high side winds so the gondola was closed as were the top parts of the slopes. We still decided to head out for some runs, despite not being a huge fan of T-bar lifts. There weren’t many people on the slopes. I suppose most people stayed in to prepare for Christmas as part of the slopes and lifts were closed. We had a few nice runs in the lower part of the world cup run (the top was closed). When the wind got too chilly, we felt it was time for a hot drink. We headed to Bistro Hissi, at the foot of the slope and enjoyed some Glühwein. After warming up we enjoyed a few more runs and then it was time for R&R and sauna at our apartment.

Christmas dinner

For our Christmas dinner, we had bought some of our favorites from the store. We had mushroom salad, cured whitefish, whitefish roe, shrimp salad, cold smoked reindeer, and some Christmas ham for hubby. The dinner was delicious, and we had bought enough to have leftovers for the next day. We also managed to eat enough but not too much. Later we had some dessert in the form of Lindt chocolates. We spent the evening reading and watching some Netflix. All in all, we had a lovely relaxing Christmas Eve and there was no stress or hassle being just by ourselves and not really having to prepare anything for Christmas.

Christmas Day

The next morning we slept in and once we had breakfast, we checked the slope conditions for the day. Turned out it was the second day with very few lifts and slopes open. This resulted in us deciding not to go skiing that day at all. Especially as the weather for the next day seemed promising so we were sure the gondola and slopes would be open on Sunday. So instead of skiing, we went for a walk around the village. To round off the walk we headed to Taiga for some mulled wine. The rest of Saturday we ate our leftovers from Christmas Eve, read our books and relaxed in front of Netflix charging our batteries for the next day of skiing.

One more Lapland post to follow.