With John finished with finals and officially on break, we wanted to take some time to do things that we don't normally get a chance to do (e.g. explore Kansas, go out to dinner, and just hang out.) We heard about a small town called "Little Sweden," or Lindsborg, which is about 2 hours away from us. I read that they were supposed to be having a Christmas event from 2-8pm on Saturday, so we decided to take a day trip to this little Swedish town.
We arrived in Lindsborg a little before 2, so we walked around the town (despite the bitter cold!) and visited the all of the shops. Only about half of the stores were open, but they all had signs in their windows advertising the day's events of caroling, shows on an outdoor stage, free hot cider and cookies, and tram tours of the Christmas lights. After being in town for a few hours and not seeing any Christmas activity, we were seriously beginning to wonder what was going on. John was ready to leave and were were both miserablely cold, but we went to get some food with hopes that things had just been delayed.
We ate at a little sandwich shop where John had a "Swedish reuben" - turkey, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and lingonberries. I had yummy Swedish pancakes, which are really much more like crepes. After lingering over a dessert of cookies and hot chocolate, we went back outside to find that still nothing was going on in the town!
I was determined that since we had driven two hours, we were at least going to wait for the free cookies and cider (even though I had just eaten my fill of purchased cookies and hot chocolate.) I convinced John to hold out a little bit longer by going into "Old Stuga" - the local bar. John made me promise that if nothing had started by the time we left Old Stuga, that we would give up and drive home. At about 6:30pm, we went back outside and walked up and down mainstreet - still nothing. It was like they had cancelled Christmas! No cookies, no hot cider, no caroling, no dancing....nothing! We did see the tram parked along the street - but it was empty with no driver.
John could tell how sad I was when we got back in the car, so he decided to drive around town and at least find the Christmas lights for ourselves. We drove around the whole town and....no Christmas lights!
Our day was redeemed a bit when we stopped at a "Christmas house" on the way home. There's a house right outside of Wamego that does a Christmas light show every night for a few weeks before Christmas. We pulled into their driveway where they had signs telling us to tune our radio station to a certain channel. All of their Christmas lights are set to music! It was amazing. The show lasts about 10 minutes and consists of 3 different Christmas songs. Seriously incredible.
One of the paintings on a building around town.
John with one of the many Dala horses around town.
Old Stuga - we did get a pretty cool T-shirt here as a souvenier of our trip.
We arrived in Lindsborg a little before 2, so we walked around the town (despite the bitter cold!) and visited the all of the shops. Only about half of the stores were open, but they all had signs in their windows advertising the day's events of caroling, shows on an outdoor stage, free hot cider and cookies, and tram tours of the Christmas lights. After being in town for a few hours and not seeing any Christmas activity, we were seriously beginning to wonder what was going on. John was ready to leave and were were both miserablely cold, but we went to get some food with hopes that things had just been delayed.
We ate at a little sandwich shop where John had a "Swedish reuben" - turkey, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and lingonberries. I had yummy Swedish pancakes, which are really much more like crepes. After lingering over a dessert of cookies and hot chocolate, we went back outside to find that still nothing was going on in the town!
I was determined that since we had driven two hours, we were at least going to wait for the free cookies and cider (even though I had just eaten my fill of purchased cookies and hot chocolate.) I convinced John to hold out a little bit longer by going into "Old Stuga" - the local bar. John made me promise that if nothing had started by the time we left Old Stuga, that we would give up and drive home. At about 6:30pm, we went back outside and walked up and down mainstreet - still nothing. It was like they had cancelled Christmas! No cookies, no hot cider, no caroling, no dancing....nothing! We did see the tram parked along the street - but it was empty with no driver.
John could tell how sad I was when we got back in the car, so he decided to drive around town and at least find the Christmas lights for ourselves. We drove around the whole town and....no Christmas lights!
Our day was redeemed a bit when we stopped at a "Christmas house" on the way home. There's a house right outside of Wamego that does a Christmas light show every night for a few weeks before Christmas. We pulled into their driveway where they had signs telling us to tune our radio station to a certain channel. All of their Christmas lights are set to music! It was amazing. The show lasts about 10 minutes and consists of 3 different Christmas songs. Seriously incredible.
One of the paintings on a building around town.
John with one of the many Dala horses around town.
Old Stuga - we did get a pretty cool T-shirt here as a souvenier of our trip.
