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I just had the best christmas party of my life.
It was to be the standard, yearly christmas dinner with my company, they'd booked a nice cellar caf� four blocks from the office, we arrived, started off on the typical swedish christmas dishes and spirits. Christmas beer (dark&strong), must (dark&sweet), mulled wine (hothothot&sweet), Aquavit (brick to the head). Mmm.
I won't go into my being forced, with three others, to dress up like St Lucia and singing "White Christmas" and other atrocities, I would get smitten by lightning...
Then, about an hour into the dinner, we hear voices singing from the kitchen, approaching. Everybody turns around, I see what I assume is two of the kitchen staff. A man and a woman, singing a rare old swedish tune, bass and soprano style. I think "maybe it's one of them singing restaurant staffs", my mind trying to get to grips with this strange development.
Then I see it. It's my girlfriend!!! My jaw dropped, smashed through the floor tiles, killing a bunch of gophers and moles on its happy way to China. Two worlds collided, my work and my private life. I looked at my 20 colleagues, some of them grinning in realization at my surprised face. And back to her.
Although my girlfriend knows many people at my workplace, this was so totally out of the blue. I just sat there and stared, listened to the melody, finally regained control of my face.
It turns out they will accompany us for the whole night!! The company management had hired my girl and her (our) friend, an excellent piano player and parttime cantor, for the whole night. A kind of conspiracy involving certain family members (it's kind of a family company), although I haven't nailed it down to the mastermind yet.
Now it all came together. All those nights when I'd phoned her, asking what she was doing, only getting a teasing "it's a secret, hee hee!" in return. She was rehearsing, the busy little bee. At the time, I relished in the excitement over her secret scheming, unlike so much Joaquin Phoenix.
Even yesterday, she phoned me and asked if I wanted to build the gingerbread house with her that she got for her birthday a week ago. -"I'm sorry, I have this company dinner, you know, for christmas and all. -Aw, that's too bad. Well, we'll do it later then." HA!
It was a bit of a revenge. I'd taken her to the premiere of Harry Potter 2 (she's read all the books), strictly without her knowing so until we were at the cinema doors.
I drank every minute of the evening performance, ranging from all sorts of tunes, christmas psalms, old swedish troubadour melodies and folk songs. I got to join them too, her and me in an old 60's swedish pop song, done to death but fun anyway, and later just the pianist and me in an old swedish christmas heavy (O Helga Natt). I dedicated it to her to regain a bit of my dignity.
Josephine was actually afraid I'd get angry by the surprise (apparently some people can be shy and feel embarrassed) but I ate it with favabeans.
I was so proud that my colleagues finally met and saw my girlfriend for what she was; a tender siren, her soprano voice like a falling feather (argh, that's rich even for me but it was the accuratest likeness this late at night). Her voice is identical to that of Mary Hopkin, for those of you who've heard her. "Those Were The Days" and all that.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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