Happy Holidays! Christmas peace has just been declared for all of Finland via a broadcast from the cathedral in Turku, and so we send along wishes of peace to everyone. We just returned from a short trip to Rovaniemi to experience the solstice up past the Arctic Circle where though the sun does not rise, light does bend up over the horizon in the atmosphere. Just over a hour north by air. So it wasn't completely dark as you can see in the picture from our hotel window at around 3pm, but it was a half hour later in the main square. We enjoyed dinner the first night in a Lapp Kota - a tent made of reindeer hides (inside the restaurant), and we did eat reindeer too - it's very nutritious meat and a vital industry for the Sami. (And it does not taste like chicken!) Odd that the temperatures were between 25-33F in the Arctic, while most of the northern US was frigid, but it was warmer than average, though with a noticeably deeper chill than in Helsinki. Two pages of pictures follow.