Gävle Julbock

The large straw goat in the town of Gävle made the news on Christmas day. Not because something happened to it, but simply because it was still in place, untouched and unharmed. The 13 meter high Christmas symbol has been torched more often than not since it first made its appearance in Gävle in 1966. Various strategies to ensure that Gävle still would have its goat have been tried including employing guards, making a spare goat and, in recent years, drenching it in flame retardant. The flame retardant worked but took all the yellow luster out of the goat. This year's method is different: no guards, no flame retardant, no spare. It burns up - it's gone. This realization seems to be sufficient to get the bonfire-happy Swedes to leave their goat alone. So far, anyway.

While in Gävle today, I bought a little wooden goat to decorate the Christmas tree. If you're wondering why the tree doesn't have needles, it's because I converted my potted ficus plant into a Christmas tree this year.

The other pic is just a classic tourist shot of the houses in Gävle's old town.

Correction: Apparently there are guards at night, and a torching attempted had been successfully thwarted by a passerby who used one of the available extinguishers. I don't see it in my pic, but there's supposed to be a burned patch on one leg.