The cases of the Novembers are over...right?

I was at a party last weekend when a Finnish girl showed up and someone asked how she was doing.  She gave a big sigh and said, "I have such a case of the Novembers."  All the Swedes, Finns, Danes and Norwegians nodded their heads and gave sympathetics gestures.  "Wait, what are the Novembers?" I asked.  The Novembers mean you are more sleepy, less wanting to leave your apartment, you have a harder time staying focused on work or school, you eat more breads than normal and are usually battling some form of a cold.  So, it turns out, I had a minor case of the Novembers.  Who knew?

Swedes don't have much fondness for the month of November.  I think it comes after a great month where the trees change their colors and it comes before the merriment of the Christmas season in December.  November is just:

Dark

4 pm

Supposedly rainy (hasn't been this year)

And cold (also hasn't been this year) without anything overly exciting happening.

While the darkness has made me more sluggish, my November wasn't entirely bad - I had Thanksgiving to look forward to!  I decided to host an international Thanksgiving (see Thanksgiving Invitation) to celebrate being thankful for my new friends and life in Sweden.  A friend offered her apartment because it's bigger and we invited a few friends.  My Thanksgiving included 2 Scotts, 1 Finn, 1 Swede, 1 Norwegian, 1 Romanian, 1 Thai, 1 Korean, 1 German, and 1 American (me).

It just so happened that we didn't have class on Thursday so I spent the morning teaching friends how to make pumpkin pie, roast a chicken (turkey is too hard to find) and gave history lessons on the holiday.

Making a Graham Cracker crust for the pumpkin pie

My full fridge with Thanksgiving foods

Roasting a chicken

Loaded bikes to transport our food to our friends' for Thanksgiving

It was a really fun Thanksgiving sharing a few traditions with new friends and letting our international perspective influence our Thanksgiving in Sweden (as seen by the foods we consumed).  We ate good food, had stimulating conversations, played games and got to know each other better.  I'd say that is a near perfect Thanksgiving.

Some of our Thanksgiving foods: roasted chicken, Swedish meatballs, Scottish fish soup, Pad Thai,
Korean Salad, German Potato Balls, and, of course, Pumpkin and Apple Pie

Now, today is December 1st.  I woke up at 6:30 to pitch darkness.  By 8 am it was still dark with a faint light about to appear.  As depressing as the darkness is, when I looked out my window I saw all the candles (fake) lit in my neighbors windows bringing light to the darkness and, at the moment, I don't feel too badly about the dark.  Maybe, my Novembers are over?

Some second year students came to my class last week and passed out pamphlets titled, "How to cope with winter in Malmö."  They gave a short presentation stressing we are not alone and these Novembers we are experiencing now, may get worse in January and February.

They claim "daylight" is from noon to 3pm!

Does that mean a "case of the Novembers" lasts longer than the month of November?  Maybe it's just a case of the winters.  But anyway, it's December and my social calendar is looking packed with visits to Christmas markets, Lucia celebrations, Christmas cookie making, a Christmas party in Copenhagen, a traditional Christmas table feast at Ikea and Christmas choral services.  Also, somewhere in there I need to focus on my Biostatistics class.  Hmm,  Well, November, you were ok, not as bad as the Swedes make you out to be.  But December, I see why Swedes love you.  And I'm so excited!  I'll worry about January and February later.  For now, Happy 1st day of Advent!