If there is one thing that you never get used to living in Sweden it’s November and December, and the weeks leading up to Christmas. It’s usually cold, dark and rainy. The end of 2025 was particularly bleak with no more than 2 or 3 hours of sunshine in all for the month of December. Stockholm, apparently, only had half an hour.

On New Year’s Day the temperature began to drop, and on the second of January we woke up to a light dusting of snow. We had spent New Year at the summer house to spare Cooper from the crackers and fireworks, which paralyse him with fear. As we headed back to Göteborg the snowing continued and by the end of the week we had full on snow chaos with at least 50 cm of snow and high winds pushing the snow up in drifts. Göteborg was caught off guard, public transport ground to a halt, and people were told to work from home.

The first weekend of the year was beautiful. After the chaos the clouds cleared, the sun came out, and the fresh snow glittered. The snow was so deep it was difficult to walk where it wasn’t ploughed. The snowploughs struggled to keep up and roads, lawns and carparks blended into one under an even, white blanket. It was quiet, the snow absorbs sound, and the sun burnt your eyes, but it was beautiful. This is what “real winter” looks like.

After a couple of days the temperature rose, we got a little rain and the snow started thawing and turn to slush. This is the downside of “real winter” and it makes life outdoors unpleasant and difficult as it is like walking around in jelly. Before it had a chance to melt away completely the temperature dropped again and the slush turned to ice. Now it was no longer just unpleasant to walk outside, it was lethal, with patches of black ice to slip on and risk cracking skulls and breaking limbs. Luckily we have stayed on our feet as the cold is set to continue for another week or so.

The first set of bright colour photos are from the nice and sunny weekend after the snow.

The second set of more subdued black and white photos are from a few days later as it started to thaw.