Oops...

Sorry about the lack of updates! Mostly I haven't been able to update because life got in the way, but that's not really a bad thing...;) I've still taken mos of the photos I planned to, but as I forgot to bring my laptop for the holidays the updating and uploading of pictures got a little more difficult... I'll try to upload before new years - but seeing that it's mostly my social life that keeps me away from my daily blog project, and it's the season for crazy amounts of socializing, I can't make any promises. Any updates will be backdated to the originally intended day of uploading.

It's Christmas Eve already! Only 7 days left of 2009! Merry Christmas!

Status Update

Sorry for the lack of updates, the Christmas Calendar Project is still on, even though I haven't been able to upload my posts at the promised rate. When they do come they will all be backdated to the day they represent.

New update when the calendar project is up to date. Cheers!

Christmas Calendar: December 11th

December 11th, 2009. Sunlight! At least the last remains of it for the day. And Christmas decorations at the town square. Moose in Sunset < Christmas Tree in Sunset.

Christmas Calendar: December 10th

December 10th, 2009. The main "Christmas Street" in town.

Christmas Calendar: December 9th

December 9th, 2009. The macabre angels at the mall. Scary and (seemingly) headless. I wonder if the artist/decoration director was aware of this or not...

Christmas Calendar: December 8th

December 8th, 2009. Christmas Workshop - Norwegin style! Norwegian and Japanese friends gathered toghether with crafting gear, Christmas music, hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies. Process, results, and good memories:)

Christmas Calendar: December 7th

December 7th, 2009: Christmas Decorations at the Student Centre. Not Impressed.

Christmas Calendar: December 6th

Temporarily Photo-Free Blog Post.

- because I forgot to bring my camera with me when I ran out the door this morning.

I know what picture I want in this post though.
I'm planning on taking a photo of a friend's christmas tree, and then write a short note about it. But writing the note, and not posting the picture at the same time, will be too much of a spoiler so you'll all just have to wait. ;)

Christmas Calendar: December 5th

December 5th, 2009. Julebord/Christmas Parties/Year-End-Parties. A friend and I were hanging out at my place and decided to go out for a drink (yes, one/1 drink... at first..). Since it turned out to be Saturday (a complete surprise to us both) and full of fun people from a Christmas Party we ended up spending the whole evening in the merry company of random fun people. It was almost like having a Christmas Party of our own;)

乾杯！

Christmas Calendar: December 4th

December 4th, 2009. Work / バイト. Christmas decorations at my part-time job. Not much more to say, it was supposedly a quiet evening, but because of the Christmas Party-season I still ran until my feet hurt, and then a little more.

I'll replace this phone-photo with a proper one when I remember to bring my camera to work.

バイトは楽しいけど、帰るまですごく疲れた。

Christmas Calendar: December 3rd

December 3rd, 2009. Christmas lights spotted on the way to a favourite café/coffee shop/kissaten. My classmates and I celebrated the end of the semester with hot chocolate and improvised a haiku for the occasion that we wrote in the café guest book:

三人が
試験を受けた
気持ち良い。

The three,
Having finished with their exams,
Feel good.

(by: AA, ABH & CK)

...and other random scribbles for future customers' reading pleasure puzzlement. :)

Christmas Calendar: December 2nd

December 2nd, 2009. A Christmas decorated pedestrian street where I live. It even has it's own Christmas tree. ♥

Today I'm adding a Japanese proverb:

猿も木からおちる。
Even monkeys fall from trees.



Mata ne!

Christmas Calendar: December 1st

December 1st, 2009.
Christmas star at my friends' place where we had a Christmas Party / Pinnekjøttkveld. Best evening in a looooooong time. Cheers!


朝四時半に一人で歩いて帰る。
イルミネション照らす道は捨てる。
ちょっとだけだけど、
今、私は照らす道がありそう。
気持ちいい。

Walking home by myself at 4:30 am.
The decorated streets are deserted.
It's just for a moment, but,
Right now it feels like the illuminated streets are just mine.
It feels nice.

Christmas is approaching, December is here

A little about my Christmas Calendar Project

Background:
In Norway it is common tradition for families to have Christmas/Advent Calendar for the children (or tweens, teens, twenty-somethings, etc.) to count down to Christmas eve. Some families make a 'gift calendar'  with 24 small items (of whatever, pencils, erasers, candy, chocolate, home made cookies, figurines, etc.) that someone, usually a parent, has collected and wrapped up, given the numbers 1-24 and arranged as a calendar in one way or another (I'm not going into detail here, comment if you're interested in examples, and I'll elaborate).

The most common Christmas Calendar, however, is the chocolate calendar, with 24 doors hiding each their piece of chocolate, one for each day of December until Christmas Eve. Chocolate calendars sometimes has a piece of a story (usually the Christmas story/stories) behind the doors. Jostein Gaarder's book Julemysteriet (The Christmas Mystery) is a good example of a Christmas story calendar. More wonderful calendar ideas over at Janne's blog (Thank you Janne! ♥).

The beginning of my project:
During my exchange studies in Japan I decided to make my own Christmas calendar project since I couldn't find any Christmas calendars there. I decided to make a photo project for my blog, taking one picture each day of something that made me happy that day. Within that framework anything was allowed - as long as I deemed it suitable for viewing on a public blog and safely show my family. ;)

The first Christmas Calendar Project came out like this:

 (click for larger view)

In 2008 I didn't make a Christmas Calendar Project, so my 2009 X-mas project will be my second. I'm
thinking of doing it approximately the same way, i.e. deciding on a concept and then try to take a concept-related picture each day until Christmas.

The 2009 X-mas Calendar Project:
I've asked several of my friends for ideas to my calendar concept, and in the end I decided to aim for "Christmas Ambience", take 24 photos and make a blog post for each of them here on my blog along with a short comment on the picture. After Christmas I'll make a collage.

It's already December 2nd, so the first two pictures will soon be posted. 

Hope you'll enjoy my X-mas Calendar Project! Comments are appreciated, especially if you identify yourself with a name or nickname:)

-Cecily