This is probably the longest, coldest and most snowy winter we have had in Sweden for half a century. The whole country is still covered with snow and it's been like this since a few days before Christmas.

It's SO beautiful, at least out here in the countryside just outside Stockholm. The snow is white and pristine, the sky is blue. In February the Black birds started singing and the sunLIGHT returned. Amazing! And now, in early Mars, the Willow catkins are budding. I have them just outside my bedroom window, and they are among my favourite little wonders on earth.

Stockholm: -17°C (-2,2°F). I can't recall when we had a winter like this. It's very beautiful, but I'm beginning to long for an early spring.

The first thing to do in getting some "spring-feeling" is to clean out Christmas. In my family we usually do that on January 13th according to a very old tradition in Sweden and Finland, called Tjugondedag Knut ("Knut" is the name that is being celebrated on that date and "Tjugondedag" means 20 days after Christmas). Different parts of Sweden celebrate this day in different ways, often with lots of singing and dancing round the christmas tree. And after the tree has been - literally - thrown out, Christmas is gone with the wind... (except from all the firneedles on the carpet...)

After that I will go out and buy a bunch of tulips!

To me the tulips on the kitchen table is a greater symbol to The New - with all the hopes and dreams and commitments that include - than New Years Eve with all its fireworks and champagne.

Happy New Year!

We have so much snow here in Stockholm. It came... at last! For the first time in six years we celebrate a WHITE Christmas! With these photos I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year, full of laughter, health, harmony, wealth and love!

Our Harpo Marx-Snowman!