Norwegian Christmas, Take Four

Yeah, I know Christmas was about a month ago.
I realize that I have a duty and an obligation to share my Norwegian experiences,
and that I have been slow and letting you all down!

Luckily there is no expiration date on pictures and sharing. :)

Part of the problem is is that I no longer think of these experiences as "Norwegian experiences" and super exciting, must-share happenings!
This is my fourth Christmas in Norway. My FOURTH!
These experiences have become routine, normal and nothing out of the ordinary.


And wonderful! Wonderful, yes, yes, that too of course!
It's been long enough that these traditions feel like my own.

For the past four years we have traveled to Tynset to celebrate Christmas with Lars' family.

We decorate a local tree with Norwegian flags and simple ornaments on the night before Christmas Eve. The Christmas tree lights look like candles and are white--not colored and not blinking! No fancy business.

We enjoy great food, drink and company later that night at the Snarvolds and watch Hovmesteren on TV. We laugh a lot and eat arguably too many Christmas cookies. The same procedure every year.

We eat rice porridge (grøt) with the entire extended family at noon on Christmas Eve (Day).

We take it for granted that we will have a white Christmas.
It's just the way it is deep in the heart of Eastern Norway (although this year was strangely "warm").

We clean and decorate the entire house for Christmas! Again, it's just the way it is; everyone does it.

Sometimes we go to church, sometimes we don't.
This year we didn't. Sometimes we sleep on the couch.

And we always set the table, and use the fancy china and no one gets mad if you spill a little aquavit here or there. And everyone eats seconds because it's delicious food, but also because it's tradition and that's what you do.

We dress up and eat ribbe on Christmas Eve in those fancy clothes. Yes, it's true--no pajamas, no Christmas morning and no stockings! And that means no mimosas either (yeah Dad, I caught onto that as a teen)...

But there's wine! And coffee, and cognac and Baiiley's and whatever you could wish because after dinner we eat dessert--a different variant of rice pudding (riskrem) with berry sauce or cloudberries and cream (multekrem) and then, and only then, do we open presents! 

We eat an insane Christmas breakfast with the neighbors on Christmas morning.
Sometimes this includes aquavit, sometimes it doesn't.
And then we stretch our legs with a long walk afterwards. Dogs are welcome.

We enjoy each other's company. We laugh and make merry and remember a year well lived.

We celebrate Christmas Norwegian style!
And after my fourth go at it, I realize that when I make it back to the US to celebrate Christmas again that I am actually going to miss these traditions...
...these "new", "Norwegian" traditions that have become my own.

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Christmas Eve Dinner

Most Norwegian families eat ribbe on Christmas Eve (Wikipedia tells me 60%). I think the best translation for this is pork loin, but do correct me if you know better. It's pork at least! And it's soo good.

Here you see how Lars' family enjoys ribbe year after year. In the top right hand corner you will see peeled, boiled long potatoes, or almond potatoes (langpotet/mandelpotet), from the neighbors' farm. This kind of potato is essential to most Norwegian Christmas meals and comes from the same region as Lars and his family!

Clockwise from the potatoes is a juicy piece of ribbe, a julepølse (Christmas sausage), three brussel sprouts and a small helping of homemade sauerkraut (surkål). Not pictured is tyttebærsaus (lingonberry or cranberry dressing) and ribbefett (gravy/fat).
 
Ribbe gets better and better each time I eat it. I am even starting to like all the tilbehør (side dishes)!

Merry late Christmas!
And Happy New Year while I'm at it!

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What's the forecast?

It's understandable that weather is the go-to conversation topic for Norwegians...it really does determine a good deal of life here.

A good example is of course Lars and I having to take the train home from a weekend visit in Tynset because suddenly the heavens started dumping snow and we hadn't switched out to studded winter tires. It would have been RISKY to drive the 3 hour trek back to Hamar with two to three inches of new snow covering the ground and evening setting in.

The weather can change at a drop of a hat!

Check out this picture I took outside our house in Hamar on Thursday :

 
And this picture I took outside Lars parents' house in Tynset just a few days later:

Talk about contrast, right?
The worst thing is, is that Tynset on Saturday didn't look a whole lot different than my Hamar picture from Thursday (maybe less leaves).

Also, Norwegians don't let the weather get them down. After all: det finnes ikke dårlig vær bare dårlig klær! (There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad/the wrong clothes!) So the impulsive snow storm did not stop us from watching Tynsets mens team's last home game on Sunday, oh no! We found the appropriate attire and out we went!

Norwegians are weather champions!

In other news, I had the entire weekend off from work (besides thee phone calls and multiple text messages!) and it was glorious.

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Extreme cold

On Christmas Eve in Tynset the thermometer dropped down to -38°C (-34°F)! Luckily for us, we were warm inside feasting, drinking and opening presents. Christmas Day it warmed up a bit--not much I will admit--but enough that I dared to take a short walk outside with Lars' mom and their Norwegian Elkhound Raja.

Don't get me wrong, it's COLD. Like so cold that you think "Why the hell am I outside?!" But there is only so much fatty holiday food and stuffy cozy air from the fireplace that one can handle before you have to get out into the world and move around a bit!

We took a short 15 minute-ish walk around the neighborhood which was more than enough time for us to feel the cold on our thighs and buttocks! And it was definitely long enough for my entire heard to turn into ice!

This walk got me thinking...I had seen on the news last winter when it was equally as cold and even colder that you could throw boiling water up into the air and it would turn into ice! I think it's one of those things that you have to experience for yourself to believe it...for a Washington girl like me, it was at best a myth!

But I can now confirm the validity of that statement. I myself have turned boiling water into ice\snow dust within seconds and a wave of my hand!

I'm a magician!
But then again, so is Lars' mom. Or anyone with a pitcher of boiling water in Tynset at winter time. ;)

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Glasses on, please.

It seems like I'll I'm writing about nowadays is parties...I promise that I am actually working a lot and doing other productive things. Not JUST having a good time... ;)

But a good time does a body good once in awhile, yes? Earlier this month, Lars, Danielle and I took off to Tynset for a 30th birthday celebration.

The invitation asked us to bring glasses and our bathing suits and we complied!

We ate delicious tapas, enjoyed some tasty wine, ate some more, then ate some cake, danced,...

Hot tubbed, laughed and made merry.

It was a very successful birthday celebration.

I love theme parties. But then again, you probably have gotten that by now.

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Cabin life

This weekend Lars and I took off to Tynset (his hometown) and stayed at one of his uncles' cabin.

His uncle Erik stays there often so it is well stocked with dishes, furniture, food etc. etc.

It was an awesome weekend--just the two of us, no TV, no internet, no electricity or running water!

Did I mention it's lakeside? Yes, nice.

It felt like we took a trip back in time...you can see from the pictures how old fashioned everything is. Here's the fridge:

And this is the key to get you in the front door:

Above you see a 'cabin book' which is typical to find in Norwegian cabins. Guests sign the book and tell a bit about their stay. We read entries from Lars' family before I was born!

In a way I also felt like we traveled forward in time; we left fall behind and jumped straight forward into winter!

The first snow of the year had blanketed the ground and it was just a few degrees above freezing throughout our stay; it really made the fresh mountain air even more crisp and refreshing.

In some ways I felt like I was living in a snow globe. A very happy, Norwegian snow globe.

We played cards, listened to the radio, looked through old pictures, drank wine by the fire and enjoyed each others' company.

*My hat here is among the gobs of cool random junk that has been living at the cabin for YEARS!

Other than that, I don't have really that much to say. I feel like the pictures speak for themselves. It was fabulous. I haven't relaxed so much...uh...ever? It was so great to spend so much one on one time with Lars. ♥

I am really looking forward to the next time we get to stay there...maybe when either swimming or skiing is a possibility? ;)

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Foot in Mouth!

It's been a long time since I've shared a Foot in Mouth post...and NO folks, it's not because I speak Norwegian perfectly and don't ever make mistakes. It's just that my mistakes aren't as entertaining anymore. They're even borderline boring. Or maybe just funny for those that also speak Norwegian.

So I have to share a mistake I made quite some time ago and can't really believe that I haven't shared yet. I thought of it last night when I was reading Rik's blog and he related some of his issues with the word for bag (like a plastic grocery bag) in Norwegian and how he did a little jig one day when he pronounced it correctly.

The word is pose. It's challenging for us English speakers to learn to make this 'o' sound. It doesn't exist in English first of all, and it's really important in Norwegian. The word good for example--god. That's something one says fairly often, but if you can't quite wrap your tongue around that 'o' sound as an English speaker is comes out sounding a bit like gud or Gud I should say, because it means God. So think on that one a little while---anytime in the first months that I meant to say good, it is likely that people heard God. All the assumptions about Americans being strangely religious were confirmed.

But it gets even better and definitely more entertaining. The verb å kose (which means to cuddle or in many other senses to enjoy) rhymes with pose and is equally as challenging. Norwegians use it a lot to say they are having a good time. For example: Jeg skal kose meg med ei flaske vin i kveld. This is challenging to translate into English but literally it would be: I am going to enjoy (myself) a bottle of wine tonight. Get the idea? It's an important colloquial verb to know and to be able to use. Enough said.

One time when Lars and I were visiting his family in Tynset, we were at a sports store and I tried on a cross country skiing jacket that was just a little bit too small. And so I, being the educated American girl that I am, quoted Tommy Boy and Chris Farley and said that I felt like a "faaaat guy in a liiiitle coat". Lars didn't get it, neither did Stine. They hadn't seen the movie! Which is appalling if you have any idea what kinds of movies Lars likes; it's totally up his alley. So I wanted to say that we should go home and enjoy that movie, but I didn't quite make the 'o' sound, friends. So they heard: Lars, da skal du og jeg hjem og kuse oss med den filmen!
Lars, then you and I are going to go home and pussy ourselves with that movie!


Awesome! The best part was that I think I realized it first and started laughing hysterically in the sports store.

Insert foot in mouth here!

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Some things don't translate well.

Like holidays for example.

Last weekend Lars, Martin and I took a trip to Tynset for the weekend. We took it fairly easy, wandered around town, went to a concert Saturday night and did our best to celebrate the 4th of July in Norway.

Lars grilled some homemade burgers, Stine made a pasta salad and we had strawberry shortcake for dessert. Good company, good food, good times...

Most of the puzzle pieces were in place (just missing some fireworks and of course the American friends+family) but for whatever reason it just didn't satisfy my July 4th appetite. Maybe it was because we were a bit worn out from the party the night before, or that we didn't really have much time since we had to travel back to Hamar that day--I'm not really sure.

Maybe some things are best celebrated in their county of origin. I'm not certain 17. mai would translate too well to life in the US either. I mean...ugh, I dunno...it's just not the same.

What I am sure of, however, is that it made me more homesick than ever! It's been too long; I NEED to visit home.

The end.

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