GODJUL??

Wow where the heck did I go yesterday? Okay so I’m driving to an appointment and it’s a pretty long drive through a bunch of small little nothing towns when I come into an area of small shops lining either side of the road. Immediately I notice that they are still all decked out for Christmas, with the usual wreaths on light posts and garland and such, as I near the center of the town I see they have one of those large garland banners typical of many small towns that spans the whole road from side to side and like most of these banners it has lighted words in the center. Expecting to see the usual Seasons Greetings or Merry Christmas I am totally surprised to see GODJUL, I stare at this statement and all I can think is I am looking at it backwards so I think about it and I am like no LUJDOG doesn’t work either, besides the letters would be backwards.

I can’t get this odd statement out of my head after I arrive home, so I hit my always reliable source of info, the internet. I google Godjul, I get some My Space stuff and a couple You Tube videos of some band, that can’t be it, why would they have a holiday banner advertising a little band? Next I try Wikipedia, I search Godjul, no results. I give it a little thought and I decide maybe it is two words, I google God Jul and immediately get a result called Merry Christmas around the world, God Jul a Swedish Merry Christmas. Man am I feeling out of the loop, is there really an entire town of people who are only speaking Swedish right next to me? I mean really how many people have driven through this same town and been completely puzzled by this banner? It can’t just be me, and when someone moves in to the town do they force them into some sort of remedial Swedish class or are they like us outsiders, just left completely in the dark? I am thinking of returning to this place and just randomly stopping from shop to shop asking “What does that sign mean?” just to see if they all know or if they just hang it because they have no other banner. I mean it kind of freaked me out I felt as though I had driven through some sort of transporter and I was no longer in my country, or I had become suddenly dyslexic because I couldn’t make sense of a very large lighted word. Very scary.