Friday, December 28, 2012

A Norwegian Christmas...

I did a blog post about how Norway celebrates their national day. So I thought I would share how Norway celebrates Christmas. Or at least how my family celebrates Christmas here in Norway. I'm sure every family has their own personal traditions, as does ours.

Christmas does not start nearly as early as it does back home in Canada, where sometimes the Halloween decorations come down as the Christmas ones go up. Usually, people start decorating the first Sunday in Advent with advent lights and Christmas stars in the windows. And people often decorate with purple in the Advent season, which I assume, has to do with Norwegian culture being strongly tied with the (once) State Church (Lutheran). Most people have Advent candles at home and they light a new one each Sunday before Christmas.

Norway's Santa Claus is called Julenissen. A "nisse" is a figure of Scandinavian folklore. A small person/elf like creature that usually hid in the woods/barns of farmers. They helped out the farmers but could also do mischief as well, especially if they were offended. Julenissen brings presents to children on Christmas Eve. Julenissen really likes his "grøt" (rice porridge) so tradition dictates that a hot, steaming bowl of grøt with a big pat of butter and generously sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, is left outside for julenissen. I suspect there are a lot of happy kitties with full tummies on Christmas Eve. As commercialism has taken over Christmas, julenisse has become to look more and more like the Santa Claus of American culture. But here is a somewhat more traditional picture of Norway's julenisse.


The main Christmas celebration happens on Christmas Eve evening. Everyone dresses in their finest and the men wear suits. The Christmas meal is very traditional depending on where you live in Norway. You can not mess with the traditional Christmas meal!! If you were to suggest having, say... lasagne, on Christmas Eve, Norwegians would be horrified. In our family, the traditional Christmas Eve meal is pork ribs with crackling, sausages and meat cakes, warmed sour kraut, potatoes and veggies with gravy and lingen berry sauce. It's delicious. 



Often dessert is rice cream, made from the left over rice porridge and mixed with whipped cream and served with strawberry or raspberry sauce. Delicious! Other traditional meals are cod, dried, salted lamb called pinnekjøtt (blech), or lutefisk (double blech). 


My 3 girls anxiously waiting as the evening is about to begin!


After the meal come the presents! Yup, the kids have to wait all day to get to the highlight. We have a big family and there's usually a huge mountain of presents to get through. After the presents comes the coffee and cake and general "stuffing of one's face" the rest of the evening. Ahhh. 

I love Christmas in Norway. It's very elegant. I still miss getting up at the crack of dawn and opening up presents in my jammies but I do love the celebrations here and it's absolutely become Christmas for me. Even the traditional Norwegian Christmas carols which were completely foreign to me before, are really Christmas for me now. Like this lovely Christmas melody called "Mitt hjerte alltid vanker" (My Heart Always Wanders) sung in the style of Norwegian folk music. 



I would love to go home to Canada for Christmas one year though. There's nothing like the Christmas of your childhood....

8 comments:

  1. Loved to hear of your traditions and your girls looked beautiful! This Christmas seemed extra special to us... don't know why. It's getting different every year as the kids grow, but still the same somehow. I think each year we say that it was the best Christmas ever! Oh... and it was so much fun playing games with your mom and dad Christmas Eve. We had a lot of laughs!

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    1. Sounds wonderful Crystal! I love Christmas and enjoy it every year!

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  2. So much of what you described I have heard from my mother. She is Danish,her parents came over on a ship when mom was an infant, but she was raised with the traditions in her home growing up. She has a "nissemand" that sits on the back of her sofa every year at this time. :)
    When we were growing up, as a compromise between cultures, the adults opened gifts at night, on Christmas Eve, and we kids opened up our gifts on Christmas morning. If we had had children I probably would have carried that along to our household.
    The girls looked so lovely as did everyone else!
    I'm glad you had a good Christmas. I'm going to read your blog to my mom. She would love to hear it. :)

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    1. Denmark and Norway have a lot of things in common. The language is very similar and I can easily read Danish. And I think it's great to combine traditions. My girls get a Christmas stocking which is a tradition I've taken from home.

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  3. Elsker dette, Alicia! Sååå koselig!!

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  4. I, too, loved to read all about the Norweigan christmas traditions - I've always loved the fact that you all get dressed up and the tables always look so festive and beautiful. Your girls looked beautiful. They are really growing up! I'm no longer on FB (spent way too much time there and having withdrawal symtpoms, haha) so I will be checking in faithfully to see what is going on in your neck of the woods. My life is boring compared to yours I think! Hope you're having a relaxing christmas with your family. My boys are home but will be going back sometime next week. Jerry got home from Hong Kong/Thailand and is nursing a badly banged up leg from a scooter accident and I'm afraid I'm not a very good nurse! Take care ALicia...Love, Brenda

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    1. I like that you're checking in on me! :D Tell Jerry "hi" and hope his leg gets better soon. Sindre kinda mangled a couple of fingers on Cmas Eve in the snow blower. Nothing broken though. He's in Poland for the next 4 weeks with work. Keep in touch! :D

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