I have been wondering for the past few weeks if I am the only one who is outspokenly bothered with the Christmas decorations in Oulu city centre. How is it possible that such a big city doesn’t seem to care about the image it gives during Christmas? Oulu is supposed to be a ‘technological city’ . . . that is why I thought that funding would not be an issue. But here is what got me thinking about this…

A week or so ago I decided to get into the Christmas spirit. Lights usually do this for me. So I went downtown, fully anticipating a magical site. I stepped off the bus and looked around noticing, that everything around me was the same as usual. “All the lights must be concentrated in Rotuari then!” I thought. At the Rotuari ball, my jaw literally dropped when I saw the main city centre. There were some old-fashioned looking stars on each side of the street and that was pretty much it. I seethed. “Why on earth can’t they afford some proper Christmas lights! Is it too much to ask?!” I walked all around the city centre but the streets didn’t look encouraging. Finally I came to the City Hall. The Christmas tree was, in my honest opinion, pretty sad and that is all I can say about it.

But there was still some hope left in me. The Christmas market! Every year we have a beautiful Christmas market in my home city. There, people can buy local arts and crafts, winter clothes, warm drinks and sausages. I guess my expectations were quite high in the beginning of the search but after the pale starts they dropped a great deal. Now I was hoping to see at least some stands at the market hall and maybe get a part of my Christmas Spirit from that. Instead I found an empty market with the Policeman statue in the middle. And so my search ended with a lot of disappointment which left me feeling distinctly unChristmassy. The opposite of what a city during Christmas is supposed to do.

Not being even close to my planned spirit, I decided to head home. On the bus I was still thinking how something like this is possible. In my home country there are many small villages and they have really beautiful Christmas decorations. The capital, which is only around three times bigger than Oulu is breathtaking during this festive season, so you can imagine how I felt.
What was even worse was that Stockman light display was the closest thing to my Christmas spirit!