long run for christmas

hej hej:)
December - the month of running: for presents, between parties and friends and jobs as well finishing everything before new year's come. And in Sweden it's even worse, as Andreas (host father) said on 1st December: "now a long run for christmas has started".
So what do Swedes do during 24 days before Xmas?
Julkalender - Christmas calender. Fighting for easting this small shity piece of chocolate every morning. Also every morning they show some kind of a seria, originally it's for children but as I found out a lot of young (15-25) ppl watch it as well - Swedes.....
Glögg fest - glintwine party. 10-80 ppl pop up in your place for a chat while you have to serve them with glögg (kind of hot wine with spices and a lot of sugar), pepparkakor (spicy cinammon cookies), mandarins and ljusbullar ("light rolls" - rolls with chafran, freaky bright yellow). You as a guest have to seat nicely with your small cup with glögg with some almonds and raisons in it and talk about weather and other blabla social bullshit.
Presents. or I'd say PRESENTS. Because you have to buy really hundreds of them! My host family stored all of children's presents in my room in order they didn't see them. So finally literally half of my room was covered with bags and boxes! They even bought them skateboards and goal gates for hockey (I hope they don't think that I'm gonna play it with them!!). Today they spent just the whole day wrapping all presents with xmas paper! Insane!
and I had to buy also like 15 presents as well, for them, for some friends, for the family of Cattis (my sweidsh friend, where i'm going for christmas tomorrow)....
Sankta Lucia - Saint Lucia celebration. 13th of December is the holiday of Saint Lucia - holiday of light. Originally it's italian but nowadays mostly just swedish ppl celebrate it coz there's no light at all in winter here. So first of all, around 7 in the morning u either go to church or just watch tv at home where girls&boys dressed in white "gost" clothes and carrying candles singing in a church. The main one - Lucia - has a kind of crown on her head maid of candles - i guess that's when swedish kids gets their life mental trauma coz it looks quite scary:P And then my host family kind of forced me to go to kindergarten to watch Sam's singing - ten 5-year olds dressed as cookies and santas pretending to "sign" - great entertainment.

ok, tomorrow it's christmas - have to wrap last presents therefore...to be continued....