Temperatures are wild

The big thing to do when living in Finland is to wear layers.  Think of Shrek and his ogres are like onions and have lots of layers theory.

Typical person living in Finland would wear this on a cold winter day (today is -29*C with wind chill and last night was -34*C with wind chill!):

Long underwear (along with regular underwear and bra if applicable), t-shirt, sweater, pants, snow pants, jacket, neck warmer (sometimes known as a collar here), hat, two layers of mittens, two layers of socks (one pair being knitted wool socks), winter boots, sometimes a scarf and a hood of their jacket.

I strongly recommend bringing with you good moisturizer - they have some pretty good stuff here, but Aveeno is my personal favourite and it is not sold here.  Also ensure that you have LOTS of lip balm or chap sticks!
Because the air is quite dry here, I've been licking my lips like crazy.
Lip licking + cold dry air =very painful lips!  I have found that I was very keen on putting lip balm on during the other seasons too!  (Yes they sell Blistex and some Lip Smacker flavours here).
For you mothers out there, nipple cream (lanolin) is an awesome moisturizer and can be worn by those allergic to wool because it is hypoallergenic.

For awhile it was about -20*C and the lakes were frozen over and that was all fine.  But then it warmed up briefly to -13*C for a few days...the lakes were still frozen solid!  But suddenly it just plummeted to -25 to -35 out of nowhere!

The Finns are reporting that last summer was the hottest it's ever been with the temperature once reaching 37.2*C!  An all time record in several decades....and we got to experience it!  Tim was in Greece at the time and it was only 34*C there.  HMMPH.
Since fall, the Finns have been reporting that this winter may be the coldest of winters ever....lovely.

Incredibly cold weather in some parts of Canada can mean power outages if the electrical lines break.  However, that does not seem to be the case here.  I may have mentioned this ages ago in earlier postings, but the electrical lines are under ground...Yes water pipes can burst due to the coldness, it happened to a friend nearby recently.  But in general, one can survive in Finland.

And yes, we have lots of snow but so far not too much ice!  I hate ice...it's so dangerous for everybody!
So another white Christmas it is!  The snow falls here like flurries in Nova Scotia.  That is typically their equivalent of a snow storm.  So you can still walk in it and not feel like you're getting "nowhere" thanks to white-out conditions.  Because as far as I know, they don't really have "white-out conditions".  Perhaps it is different for a driver of a vehicle.

Happy Holidays everybody, don't drink and drive and best of everything in the New Year!