Winter Days in the North | Working Through the Darkest Time of the Year

Hi everyone and welcome to my first video of this new year, 2026. The past weeks have been very full for me, where work has needed most of my time and attention. But here and there I've captured some moments of my days. And this video is a collection of those fragments. An honest reflection of how my life has looked like in the days between late December and early January. So let's begin. Good morning everyone. It is Monday and two days until Christmas. And I'm here in the webshop, in a workshop today in Sollefteå. Some of our team members have gone on holiday now. So I'm gonna help my brother Filip here with some packing. And I'm also gonna be a little bit in the store today and just hang around there. So that's what I'm gonna do. Now I'm gonna do some boxes. Because that's what Adrian usually do. These boxes that we send parcels in. No, parcels. I am super tired. I am just having some coffee. I'm soon gonna wake up and be able to speak. It's gonna be a lovely day. I have seen you before. Oh, you have. Yes, yes, dancing. Look at it, beautiful. Last day before Christmas. Yes. Look at this fire. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone. Wherever you are in the world right now. I hope your Christmas day is beautiful and full of love and warmth. I am sitting here enjoying the beautiful sunrise and sunset. Because the sun is going up now, but it's also going down right now. It's like the peak. And it's so beautiful. And I've just been lighting a candle at Nanook's grave. And put a little sampa to guard him. This is the first Christmas ever living here without Nanook. I got him in October 2010. And yeah, that's just a few months after I moved here. It feels sad to not have him here because he loved Christmas. He was so happy to receive gifts when he got a present. That's like the biggest joy in his life. He was more happy than the kids. It was so fun to give him gifts. And he loved sampa as well. I miss him. I miss him so much. Thank you for all your kind comments on my previous video. So many of you can relate to losing a pet. It helps a lot to know that I'm not alone. In feeling the sorrow of a pet where so many who has gone through it. Merry Christmas, Nanook. God jul. It's such a beautiful day. And I am going to go to my parents now. Because I'm going to celebrate Christmas with my family. It's going to be the whole family. So that's really nice. My two brothers as well. And my older brother's kids and wife. So it's going to be so nice to just be here in the village. It's a gift for you, Harry. He gave Harry one of his gifts for me. So he can just squeeze it a little bit. Thank you, Harry. Oh, you are so cute. We'll get it back later. It's not time yet to open. Santa's not been here. Santa hasn't been here yet. My mom and dad only has my paintings on their walls. Merry Christmas. Beautiful. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. Cheers! Hello, everybody. It's a day after Christmas. And I am all alone here in our shop. And in our workshop. There's no one working today. And we are also closed today. But I'm here working. I'm going to clean up the floors in the shop. Because tomorrow we are opened. But the cleaning services are not... How do you say? Yeah, because of the holidays, they are closed. So I'm just going to make sure it looks nice and clean in here for tomorrow. And I'm also going to do some packaging of your orders. It's so magical to be here now. And it's so quiet in the town. It's like the day after Christmas. Everyone is at home. No one is out. Everything is closed. And I had such a wonderful Christmas with my family yesterday. So my heart feels so full of love and joy and calmness. So I feel totally fine being in here and working today. Through difficult situations that we progressively express more as the true spirit being. Hey Filip! So... How do I look? You look really weird. We are tired. But we are happy. Very happy. Skål, Filip! Skål! Great job. And great job everyone here. Skål! So tomorrow it's new year. The last day of December tomorrow. What are you gonna do? Probably going to my brother's. We're gonna have the new year's party, I believe. Yeah, we're gonna go to our older brother Isak's house. Their summer house in the village where we live. And his wife and their kids. I don't have anything more to say right now at least. Do you have anything more to say? No. No? I'm done. You're done? I'm done. We're done. Now I'm going. It's gonna be so nice to come home now and make a fire in the stove. Because it's really cold tonight. And tomorrow it's new year's eve. We're at the very end of this year. I am excited for the next year. I am so ready. To leave 2025 behind me. Let's go home. I can't help but feel so much joy today. No matter how hard 2025 was. No matter how much of a struggle it's been and maybe still are. We get to wake up today to a new year. We are alive. And I think that itself is enough to feel so much gratitude. We are the first humans to ever experience 2026. And that is pretty cool. And we have no idea what this year will be. Life is so exciting. It's snowing a lot and it's going to continue to snow. But I'm so happy for that. Because we have had less snow than we ever had in December I think. So I'm so grateful that we finally have a white landscape again. But I'm gonna do some plowing. Make it nice and clean here. And then I'm just gonna go inside and spend the rest of the day under a blanket. Because even though it's a new year. I never feel like this time of the year is a new year. We are in the midst of winter. And I am deep in my hibernation mode right now. I need weeks now of slower tempo. So I guess I just wanted to say that. Good morning lovelies. It's early morning Friday. And it's pitch dark outside. And I am going to our workshop in Celestio as usual. I feel like I don't really know what I have been filming in this video. But I know I've been in Celestio a lot and working there. I don't think that's the most fun to see. But on the other hand it's been my reality lately. As long as me and my brother Filip are alone in the webshop. I have to be there a lot. We're soon on the other side of this super super intense working period. I mean Christmas, around Christmas, the whole December and usually some weeks after. It's a lot of work. But then it's gonna calm down again. And I'm super happy to have a lot of work to do. It means that everything goes well. So thank you, thank you, thank you. But I also can't wait to be back home a little bit more. When the rest of the team have come back from their holidays. Because it's gonna be very cold ahead. It's minus 15 degrees outside now and it's snowing. Which is a weird combo. And in a few days on the forecasts we're gonna have almost minus 30 here. For a few days in a row. And I really need to be home then and keep the fires alive. But my parents have said that if I need to be in our workshop in Celestio. They can help me making some fires in the stoves. Because when it's around minus 30 it's like this house where I live. It feels like I live in a cardboard box. January and February are the coldest months of the year. And I want them to be cold. I want the winter. But the only challenge is if I have to leave the house a lot. But it's only now in the beginning of January. And then things will be a little bit easier again. I get some coffee with me. Oh it's hot and nice. It's so good. And now I'm gonna drive for an hour through the winter forest. As you feel these words vibrate in every cell of your being. We're back to business. It's like a flashback. Continuous loop. Yeah we're stuck in a nightmare. We are not. We are very happy. Yes we are. Because you're like a little ghost that our kids are with. But they don't know as much about you. Filip just agreed on being on a Q&A. I never thought that. No. So feel free to ask him questions. Whatever you want to know about my brother. Yeah? Yeah, your big sister. We always say Filip is my big sister. Because that means big sister. And I am his big sister. But back in time when we were childs I was training karate. And Filip was always watching me. Yeah. Such a supporter. And my karate trainer, he was really big and a bit... You were a bit scared of him. Yeah he was a scary person. Yeah he was. His aura was really... Dominant. Yeah how you can imagine like a boom. Like you're very afraid. I was scared of him also. And one time when Filip was sitting on the bench watching me doing the training. He comes up to Filip and I see how Filip just shrinks. And he asks, so who are you? Okay. And Filip says in Swedish, I am Jonna's big sister. It's a double false. And I was so afraid to correct myself. And he was just like, hmm. Yeah he said that. Yeah and he just walked away. You look like a boy and you look like you're younger than me. So it was a bit confusing. So he never got to know the real... No. He was modern. He didn't question it. He was like, hmm. Okay. So yeah but Filip is my younger brother. He's three years younger than me. I don't know when I'm gonna do the Q&A with Filip. But you can start asking him questions and I will write them up. So here is the shop. I'm not sure if you ever understand that we have this glass wall between. So here we have the workshop area and the packing and everything. And in here we have the store. But this is not the entrance. This glass wall is only for us working here. The entrance is over there. These cold, cold winter paintings. I get cold just watching them. Food for the dears. Now I'm just gonna pick up some groceries. And then I'm going home. I usually pick up my groceries here. So I order online and then I come here and pick it up. Now my loves, now we are going home. It's Friday afternoon. It's soon getting dark. It's gonna be so nice to have a weekend at home now. And just keep the fires alive and clean up a little bit. And I'm gonna edit this video and it's gonna be nice. I'm just making a easy quick dinner tonight. Because I'm really tired and I'm really hungry. But tomorrow I'm gonna make something bigger and healthier. Since I shared about this new health journey that I'm on in my previous video. I just want to prioritize my health. And eating good and sleeping good and exercise. Just like taking care of myself. Because I haven't really done that in a long time. And yeah, I shared about my hair falling off and all those things. Just feeling really, really, really tired all the time. And I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. For all the amazing advice that I got from you guys. So many of you shared that you've been through similar things. And shared what helped you. I took so many print screens of your comments because I wanted to save it. And obviously I cannot just try everything that you shared. But I mean some things here and there really resonated with me. It just gave me a lot of hope. Because so many of you also had had all your hair falling off and everything. And you have healed it and done better choices for yourself. And it made it better. And yeah, thank you so, so much. I am so excited about cooking and everything now. I'm already planning what I'm gonna cook next day. I love it. I'm still learning so much. I make a lot of mistakes. But I think it's so wonderful once you have gone through that first wall that I had. That I felt like I couldn't really do anything. I felt so insecure. And now I've done a couple of big meals for myself. And it has tasted good. And it makes me feel good. And especially now in the midst of winter. If you haven't experienced being in the Nordic country in the middle of winter. And haven't really seen the sun in months. Even though we can see the sun a short time. But it's been such a dark December. And it's been such a dark November. It's hard to describe how it feels like in your body. When you're in this darkest, coldest time of the year. Everything gets so hard to do. At least for me. We're all different. At this time of the year the energy levels are very low. And so I'm just trying to adjust to that. To keep myself on track. Eating well and moving and doing things that are good for me. Without overdoing things. By still respecting the rhythm of this cycle. How are you guys doing so far this year? The eggs are cooking. The eggs are done. There's been a storm here a couple of days ago. I used to have a round thing. Here it is. This one is important to me. There we go. Do you see that full moon? Wow! And there's a halo around it again. A huge, huge halo. Oh, that's so pretty. It's the night to the full moon. I'm gonna go to the mother tree and hang some jewelry. That will spend the night of the full moon outside. And I'm just gonna leave them there the whole weekend. They're gonna be frozen and beautiful. Because it's really cold now. It's minus 16 and tomorrow we're gonna have around minus 23. And then on Sunday it says minus 28. But when it says minus 28 on the forecast it's usually over minus 30. I'm gonna share something with you that I thought was a little bit creepy. I'm just gonna leave the jewelry first. I'm so glad I got some energy to do something this evening. Because when I got home earlier I felt so incredibly tired and heavy. And cold. So I just did fires in the stoves and then I took a warm long bath. And then I felt so sleepy. But then after a while I got some energy back. And I for some reason decided to go gymming. I have a little mini gym in one of the outhouses here. And I haven't used it in a long time. And I guess it sounds so cliche to start exercising on January 2nd. And I guess I am cliche. It is what it is. I'm just a human. I also want to feel some kind of new start. But I only did... I don't know what I did. I didn't really gym. I just tried to move my body in some way to get some blood circulation. Because yeah. I'm tired of saying that I feel tired. But I really feel tired. But I don't think it's weird. Because I have been working a lot lately. And it's been a tough year. And it's the darkest time of the year. It's winter. It's hibernation mode. But I also know that it can be so helpful just to do something every day to move your body. So that's what I'm trying to do. As I was walking to the gym. I saw something strange. I filmed it. But I talked Swedish. Because I wanted to send it to my family. As I came closer to the little house where the gym is. I saw very fresh patterns in the snow. And that's not unusual. I have a lot of animals walking here. But I also saw something lying in the snow on those tracks. And as I came closer I saw that it was my gloves that I've been looking for. Or my mittens maybe you say. I thought I had lost them. Now they were laying in the tracks where I had not even been. And it really looked like someone had carried them there. The tracks led around the house and also into the forest. And I guess maybe it's nothing creepy about it. Maybe it was a fox stealing my mittens. I just thought it was weird that both of them were laying there in the snow. Of course as I was standing there looking at these tracks. I heard a lot of snatches or how to say. Like small twigs were breaking in the forest. And I guess that is nothing creepy at all maybe. But if you've been on this channel for a long time. You know I've been talking a lot about the forest behind my house. I am not the only one who have felt creepy vibes about this forest. My closest neighbor he also don't like the forest up here. And my brother he was actually walking here one summer looking for mushrooms. And he also felt creepy vibes. Okay so I'm standing right at the edge to this forest now. And in older videos I have talked about this creepy forest as I call it. And I have promised to record sounds from this forest. Because yes I have heard strange sounds from here. I even heard voices at times. But that was a long time ago now. But I have done so many recordings from this forest. But I have never captured anything. And I felt a little bit ashamed of that. Because so many people have asked like what happened with the recordings of the creepy forest. And I haven't got anything. So I kind of gave it up a little bit. Or I at least decided to wait until I feel something strange again. But maybe I should give it a try sometime soon. There is a really really big rock. Just like a couple of maybe 20-30 meters into the forest. And that big big rock freaks me out. And I don't really know why. And it's like this opening into the rock. So you can kind of go and look into it. But I haven't dared to go into it. It's almost like a little cave. I feel like I should do that sometime. I should go there and look. I just wanted to tell you this weird thing that happened to me about my mittens. I'm glad that they are back. I just think it was a little bit strange. And I couldn't really see what tracks it was. Probably a fox or something. I don't know. I think I'm gonna go to bed pretty early. And start fresh tomorrow. Because I feel like I have no energy left to do anything now. So it's time for bed. Thank you so much everyone for watching this video. Which I understand is not the most interesting. But I'm very very glad that you are here. Can you tell me something about you? Can you share a comment about where you are at the moment? Like with this new year and everything. Do you have any wishes for this new year? Do you have any goals or any experiences from the past year that you want to share? Please share in the comments. Good night. Good morning. It's Saturday. It's minus 20 outside. So the cold has started now. But it's gonna get way more cold tomorrow. And I'm gonna get the fire started. And I'm also gonna go out and feed the deers and the birds. Because I guess they're hungry now when it's this cold. And the yelly. You also want food? Here we have some food for the birds. The birds are fed. The deers are fed. And now I'm gonna go inside and feed myself. Make some coffee. And start this day very slowly in the sofa wrapped in blankets. Can you hear the sound? When it sounds like this then you know it's really cold. They are already here. They had emptied the buckets tonight. I think they're really hungry now when it's very cold outside. They need a lot of food. Oh I'd love to see them in my garden like this. They have no idea how much joy they bring. I mean that food is expensive. But it is so worth it. And the yelly she loves to watch them through the windows. Because it's too cold to be outside now. Can we just stay here for the rest of this month? Now it's in the middle of the day. And as you can see this is how high above the horizon the sun goes right now. It doesn't go any higher than this. It's soon about to go down again. Hello darlings. So it is three o'clock in the day. But it's dark outside already. And I absolutely love it. I am in such a hibernate, hibernation mode right now. And I so much look forward to this long winter. It's still many, many months left until the snow melts away. The ice will be on the lake until the middle of May. And that's almost half a year left. I especially love this time of the winter. Like December, January, February. Because the days are so short. And it just allows for a more peaceful rhythm in your life. And even though my slower time hasn't started yet. Because there's still so much work to do. I know that soon it will slow down. And I will really prioritize rest this winter. That doesn't mean that I won't make videos. I absolutely so much look forward to make videos. I have so much inspiration for that. I'm so much enjoying the winter so far. Even though it means a lot of struggles. I had my family helping me carrying some wood. My mom and dad came here. And I have a lot of wood now. Just outside in the porch. So that's so kind of them to help me with that. And my brother, Saki, was here to help me with some technical stuff in the house. I'm really grateful for having my family. And all support from them. That means so much. Really. It's my first winter ever living in this house alone. Having this whole homestead to myself. And sometimes it's hard to balance the work. Driving to Zoroastria so much. And keeping this warm. And trying to keep up with videos and everything. But it feels good. I know that the most intense year ever in my life is over. And things feel already so much easier. I feel a calm inside of my heart. And I just know that everything is as it is supposed to be. And I just have this cozy feeling inside of me now. Because it's finally warm and cozy in the house. Or at least in these two rooms here. I have a fire going on in the stove. And I have another fire going on in the kakelugn. I don't know how you say it in Swedish. In English. So I look forward to this evening. Starting editing this video. And just sit down with a hot cup of tea. And go into the editing bubble. Again, I just want to say thank you so much for being with me throughout 2025. For still being here. Even though it's been a crazy, crazy year. I so much look forward to share this new year with you. I hope you want to continue walking alongside with me in 2026. I hope that you have a peaceful and beautiful start on this new year. And if you're not having a beautiful start on this new year. Please don't pressure yourself. We are still in this winter time. We should let ourselves feel a bit tired. And prioritize taking care of ourselves. And resting as much as possible. So wherever you are in this world. I am sending you an abundance of love. And so many big hugs. And all my love to you. I love you. Bye-bye.