Santa Taking a Break at Ekegården 19

Every Christmas my mum puts up this poster on the kitchen wall. It has been there for as long as I can remember. It is nothing fancy. Just a simple paper poster. And if you look carefully, you can see it is covered with small cracks, like an old vase. However, my mum did an impressive conservational work on it with tejp so you can hardly notice from a distance. After many Christmases it is very fragile and has to be treated with very much care.

Placing it on the kitchen wall is like hanging an important painting in a museum. It is done under concentration, by an experienced curator using old and reliable tejp techniques. To anybody else, this might look just like any other old and sad poster. Simple and cheap. But to me it is something special. To me it is a piece of art and I would not trade it for any other.



When I was looking at the poster this Christmas I suddenly remembered something that I think could be one of the first roots to my Dreamdayproject. Maybe it did not start in 2001 but something more like 1985. I was just a little girl, maybe seven or eight years old. I was sitting by the kitchen table with my dad. He was looking at the poster and then all of a sudden he turned to me and asked:

-Who do you think is the happiest person in the picture?

I looked at all the small Santa Clauses. Everyone seemed really happy. Some were cutting wood. Others were sewing clothes and wrapping up gifts. But to me they looked all the same happy.


Or wait... Everyone except for one. My dad pointed towards the back of the picture. Behind all the other Santas there was an old Santa sitting all alone. He was not wrapping up any toys or cutting wood with the others. He was just drinking coffee and eating pepparkakor.

And yes it was true. He did in fact have the biggest smile on his face...

This was long before I discovered coffee and I did not quite understand what my dad meant at that time. But in that moment I think my perception of the world changed a little. And I got something to think about for the rest of my life. What does happiness really mean?

And maybe I don´t have to be worried about my parents after all. They seem to be doing just fine at Ekegården 19...


Happy New Year to everyone and may 2009 bring lots of coffee and simple but beautiful moments to those who appreciate them.