My First Christmas Away from Home

As long as I can remember, Christmas has always been the same, and that is just the way I like it. I'm a HUGE tradition-stickler, especially when it comes to holidays and especially when it comes to Christmas. Church on Christmas Eve; waking up earlier than our parents would have wanted on Christmas Day; waiting impatiently for dad to get back from walking the dogs; opening the presents in the stockings while breakfast finished cooking; eating homemade pecan cinnamon rolls, sausage, and eggs while always eyeing the bigger presents awaiting us under the tree; finally being able to grab all the pillows and blankets possible and then ripping open the paper, one gift at a time, until all the unwrapped presents were gone. Spending the rest of the day in pajamas playing with all our new things, knowing there were more waves of presents coming over the next few school-free days. This was how all the Christmases I can recollect have gone, and one little misplaced detail would not go unnoticed by me. When I decided to do a year abroad, I was well aware that Christmas would be a minefield. All the details would be misplaced, I mean, they even celebrate on a different day! I managed to justify this to myself by saying that if the whole holiday was different, the different traditions wouldn't bother me as much as if everything had been the same except one thing. I told this to myself for months, always a little worried that my perpetually overactive brain wouldn't fall for the trick when the holiday actually arrived.

Luckily, I had so much going on in the week leading up to the big day that I managed to distract myself with all the new traditions. Sunday night I ate dinner at my senior contact's house, and we had something called hjortegryte. It consisted of mashed potatoes, a brown sauce, mushrooms, and deer meat that my senior contact's husband had shot. I was a little skeptical of eating deer meat but didn't hesitate to eat it, and I'm glad I didn't because it was one of the best meals I've had here. That style meal is very traditional Norwegian Sunday dinner, and I can see how it starts you off on the right foot for the week! I had normal classes Monday to Wednesday, although a lot of my teachers seemed to understand that our concentration levels were a little (okay, a lot) lower than usual, and let us do more fun things or just give up on class altogether and give us an extra long lunch break. Our pre-school Christmas concerts continued all the way to Thursday, and getting up the extra half-hour early really wiped me out. I'm still trying to figure out how I got up that early every day for 5 years... On Monday, I didn't start school until 10, but still had to be there at 7:30 to play, so I and two of my friends who also started late went out and got some breakfast at the grocery store after the concert then watched a Christmas movie in our classroom. Definitely wasn't fun getting up more than two hours before I usually would have, but we made the most of it:)

Thursday was our last day of school, if you can call it that. We had our last nisse-orkester (elf/Santa orchestra, what we call the before-school concerts) then went to our respective classrooms for class juleavslutninger, little class parties celebrating the beginning of Christmas break. Our class had a class Kahoot with questions about the kids in our class, lots of Christmas food (mostly cookies and brownies), revealing of Secret Santas, and just hanging out while listening to Christmas music. Afterwards I went down with the others in the band to play along with the choir while they sang a few songs. Then there was yet another juleavslutning in the auditorium, but the choir and band had to leave before that for the day's big event: a Christmas service in Oslo Domkirke. The church is one of the more famous churches in Norway. Because we are the cathedral school, there is a church service every year even though school is a secular thing in Norway. The service was gorgeous with lots of songs and readings and a candle lighting. After that, Christmas vacation had officially begun. I headed home really only wanting to sleep at that point, and enjoyed the first hours of break by doing nothing, my favorite activity.

The next day, I decided I was going to start vacation off in a productive way and got the rest of the Christmas preparation done. In the afternoon I went ice skating with my friends Iben and Frida (vi savnet deg, Beata!!) which was a ton of fun. That evening my brain seemed to finally realize that I wouldn't get to be with my family (and their super cool ski jump gingerbread house) this year, and the homesickness set in. Luckily it was gone by the next morning, which was good because the 24th in Norway is the most important day of Christmas in Norway. The morning began with a yummy breakfast of homemade rolls that were like a breadier crescent roll. We then went out to a graveyard to put a candle on Anne's father's grave, a Norwegian tradition. When we got back we ate a little and then began getting ready for the Christmas celebration that would be held at Anne's sister's house with all of that side of the family. In Norway, Christmas is celebrated not only on the 24th, but also in the evening. Celebrations begin with a traditional meal, depending on where in the country you are from. A simplified explanation is that on the west side of the country you eat pinnekjøtt, a salt-cured lamb which is served with potatoes and kålrabistappe, which is a mash of some winter vegetables. On the east side, you eat ribbe, the ribs I tried last week which come with traditional sides as well. Some people eat turkey or lutefisk as well, but pinnekjøtt and ribbe are the most popular.

Even though we live on the east side of the country, Anne's sister's husband comes from the west coast, so we ate pinnekjøtt. It was delicious but very filling and quite fatty. Next came dessert, the traditional multekrem, cloudberry cream. It's a whipped cream with cloudberries folded in. It's served with krumkake, which is almost like a sugar ice cream cone that you can fill with the cream. You know that the kids are excited to open presents when they complain that we have to eat dessert before it's present time :P Finally the awaited hour arrived and all 16 of us gathered around the Christmas tree to open presents. With presents to all 16, it can take quite a while to open all the presents, in fact I think there were more presents in one spot there than I have ever seen before. A few presents in, Santa came to give the youngest kids some more presents. In Norway, since they celebrate in the evening, everyone sees Santa and he gives the presents out to the kids. Traditional julekaker, Christmas cookies, were served while the presents were opened. Many hours and bags filled with wrapping paper later, it was time to go home and sleep. Since there had been so many presents and not enough time to open them all, we had taken a few home to open in the morning, a little American Christmas:)

This morning we opened the rest of the presents, just the 5 of us and in our pajamas, just like I like it. While it was fun to have a huge group of people to celebrate with, I do love the relaxed vibe of the Christmases I'm used to. It was nice to get a little bit of that today:) Another difference between American and Norwegian Christmas is that in Norway, Christmas goes all the way to New Year's Eve. It's really only celebrated the 24th, 25th, and 26th, but technically goes on for quite a while. So soon we'll go over to Espen's parents house to eat more good food and celebrate some more. Next weeks post will probably also come on Monday so I can write about New Year's! Hope everyone has had and is having a wonderful Christmas and holiday season!

Word of the Post:
julaften = Christmas Eve (date-wise, but this is the day they open all the presents)

Pictures!

Ice skating with Iben and Frida

Oslo Domkirke

Cool-looking ice

Gorgeous Oslo skies, pt. 1

Pt. 2 (neither one has been edited)

Our Christmas tree

Krumkake

Multekrem