We woke up a bit bleary eyed at 8:30am with the alarm ringing. To our jet lagged bodies this was 6:30am, but with some fresh, strong coffee from the pot and a bit of Finnish breakfast, we soon felt a lot better.

While we showered and sorted through the holdals of winter clothes we had left in Kemi, Maria's mum, Soile, moved our backpacks from the back seat of the car into the boot. It wasn't that easy of a task for her either - the extreme cold had frozen the boot solid so she had to shuffle the bags through the folded down seats. We soon filled the back seat again though with more of our bags and all the Christmas presents. There was just enough space for David to squeeze in.

We were driving north, across the Arctic Circle, to Maria's Grandma's in Sieppijärvi. It was about a 2 hour drive, but with a stop for coffee and a spectacular sunrise/sunset (at this time of a year, the sun pops up over the horizon for a few minutes before slipping back down again) the time passed really quickly.

When we arrived it was snowy, not actually snowing, and the ground and all the trees had a thick covering of snow. The best way to describe it, is "Christmasy". It was cold too, very cold, in fact, very, very cold. It was minus 23 celcius.

We had a late lunch of Karelian meat stew with mash and beetroot salad, a traditional Finnish dish to keep you warm in the cold days of winter. After lunch, the three generations of women went out to the shops in Kolari for more groceries for tomorrow's big Christmas meal. Shopping is not really David's thing, so he stayed home to welcome any guests that might arrive. How that would have worked in reality, given his complete lack of Finnish language skills, will remain a mystery because no one came. Maria, on the other hand, met lots of relatives and acquaintances and the shopping trip lasted twice as long as it ought to.

In the early evening, we took Maria's mum's car and drove to the other Grandma's in Venejärvi. Venejärvi is not too far from Sieppijärvi, about a 30 minute drive, heading into the forest down an unsealed road. Bizarrely in winter the road is better, because even though it's covered in snow (and all roads are covered in snow, including main highways), all the usual holes and bumps are flattened out by the snowplow.

We noticed it was very clear as we headed deeper into the forest, there were quite a few stars visible even from the car, and we wondered if there might be Northern Lights later.

There is always work to do at Venejärvi so after dumping our bags in the little cottage and having a quick coffee, we set about our chores. We were going to be staying in the cabin, a short walk back up the road, and we needed to dig our way in. There are two ways to access the cabin, a 100m walk through the trees or 25m of driveway off the road.

One or other had to be cleared of snow. The shorter driveway seemed the best option because we could then drive our bags to the cabin instead of carrying them, but the snowplow had left a huge wall of snow blocking the entrance. After a few minutes David decided that it was going to be easier to open the footpath this evening and do the driveway another day. It wasn't just a path to the cabin that needed to be cleared either, Maria was clearing the 20m path to the outside toilet. Paths cleared, we put the heaters on full blast and headed back down to the main house.

Maria's sister, Katja, and her dog, Nena, had arrived while we were doing our chores. With all guests arrived and chores for the day done, Grandma set out the table for a late supper - bread, meat, cheese, salmon and liver pate.

After supper, we moved the big bags from little cottage to the cabin. Every time David walks outside, he always looks to the sky in the hope that the Northern Lights are out. And they were. Quite faint but they were there, so David shouted on Maria to come back to the front yard. Maria looked skyward and saw they were also at the back of the house. We moved to spot in the road that was protected from house lights to watch the show.

It was an incredible display - the green light was vibrant and bright as it danced around the sky. There seemed to be a source focal point directly above our heads and the lights circled around us, it was a 360 degree show and we were craning our necks and spinning around trying to take it all in.

The light was pulsing bright then dim, moving like dancing curtains rippling in a gently blowing wind. Occasionally there were swirls in the sky and then suddenly some red light appeared at the edge of the green. David gets very excited about Northern Lights and tonight's display was spectacular. It was freezing cold though, about -25c, and after maybe 15 minutes we went back inside to the warmth of the indoors.

It was close to midnight, but we had one last task to complete. We needed to wrap the presents ready for Christmas Eve. In Finland, Santa visits homes and gifts are exchanged on the 24th.

Presents wrapped, it was time for bed in the little cottage. We needed to be up early, we still had a few things to do in the morning before we went for Christmas Dinner.