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| My stocking I brought from home (the knitted one on the left!) amongst the others! |
Christmas in Norway is massive considering most New Zealanders and familiar with a laid back summer holiday one day type ordeal. Christmas lasted for the whole month of December! The whole town was decorated with lights which is very pretty because of the short days. The shortest day was the 23rd of December and we only had sunlight from 11 - 2 ish. You can understand why such a big deal is made of christmas because the dark time can be quite depressing!
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| Food on christmas eve. Home made herrings to the left and cloudberries and strawberry jam to the right... Yum!!! |
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| Mitten knitted in a traditional style which I was given for Christmas. They are called Selbu mittens. |
So after the month of christmas, the major celebration happens of christmas eve. On Christmas eve we had a dinner with traditional foods such as cloudberries, cold meats and different kinds of bread like lefsa (looks a bit like a tortilla but tastes a little bit sour). Then after that we opened presents! Imagine being a kid in Norway... I have so much respect for their patience. They wait the whole day with a slow family dinner and then cakes and tea and polite chat before they can open their presents. And I always thought it was hard enough waiting for all the aunties and cousins to wake up!
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| My favourite food from the christmas breakfast, home made liver paste (it tastes so much better than it sounds!) |
Christmas eve is followed by several days of constant eating including a 'christmas breakfast'. Christmas breakfast is a 5 hour brunch in which you have several courses of meats, fish and my favourite, christmas cakes and tea! I am still recovering from the baking which I justified by it being a once in a lifetime experience! (Another Fat Student here I come!) But, I am proud to say I tried everything that was put in front of me and there was only a few things I didn't like!
Now christmas is over and its back to school. Only one week holiday for christmas in Norway! I have a lot more to write because it has been a long time since I have written anything on here so watch this space!
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| A tiny bit of the christmas baking. Ginger nuts, kransekake, notterkake (almond biscuits). |
Wow Briar, how absolutely fantastic it all sounds.........apart from the herrings!!!!! Christmas is certainly much better in a cold climate. Did your family go to church? I just love the mittens, and I bet the family loved your knitted Christmas stocking. What are the stockings hanging on? Do they have a Santa equivalent? We seriously missed you at the sounds, but all the texting helped! And when did you ever have to wait for an auntie to wake up????? It's only those slugs of cousins! Sent you a wee Christmas parcel last week, you should get it next week I hope. Better late than not at all! Love you xx
ReplyDeleteHi Auntie Jane! We were all thinking of you guys at the beach, everyone here thinks that is a very weird idea... We didn`t go to church but we went to the graveyard on christmas day to put candles on graves which felt kind of simillar. Stockings aren`t much of a Norwegian thing actually which was kind of interesting! They are hanging on a little fire place which wasn`t being used. They don`t have a santa, they have nissemenn which is like lots of little santas rather than just one. I`m sure the sounds was great, I enjoyed seeing all the pictures but I missed my cheese strawas! Hugs to you and Uncle Alan xoxoxo
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