Christmas in Norway (Erling Ulvik)
Christmas in Norway
Erling Ulvik
He was born in the town of Bergen on the west coast of Norway in 1947. He has a wife and three children and nine grandchildren. He has been a teacher in a Norwegian compulsory school for more than 40 years. He taught different subjects like Norwegian, history, social science, religion, PE and English. Though he retired 5 years ago, he still takes pleasure in teaching. – ED
Nearly everybody in Norway celebrates the season of Christmas. It is said to be the season for children, so naturally parents engage themselves to meet the wishes of their children. I can tell you it is not the easiest job.
Though the celebration takes place in the end of December, from Christmas Eve till Second Christmas Day (24th to 26th), the preparations for the feast goes on for a long time.
Businesses have long ago made an industry out of the Christmas feast and made it their high season for profit. Christmas has gone commercial. As early as mid November shopping centres, magazines, warehouses and malls start their fight for the consumers’ attention. Mailboxes are filled with advertisements and messages of all kinds of bargains. Shops and shopping streets are beautifully decorated with thousands and thousands of lights hanging on artificial or newly chopped Christmas trees. In the shop windows, Santa Claus figures turns up, dragged around in his sleigh by Rudolph the reindeer. Through December, people hunting for gifts crowd the shops. By Christmas Eve, many of us are exhausted and hardly capable of enjoying the peace of Christmas.
Well, this may sound a bit exaggerating, but it is an ever-returning question: “Should we try to reduce the stress around Christmas and focus more on the core of the season?”
Norway is a monarchy, a democracy based on Christian and humanistic values. For more than a thousand years Christianity has been the official religion in our country, and there has always been a tight relationship between the Norwegian Church and the Norwegian government. Not before recently, in 2012, the separation between the State and the Church took place. Norway has of course from the beginning signed the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights; so we naturally have our freedom of speech and religious belief. Nevertheless, religion is a subject in the compulsory school, and the main emphasis is put on the Christian religion. So in short, Norway is for most of us reckoned a Christian country.
Being a Christian country we should of course focus on the fundamentals of the Christmas celebration. And we certainly do. The churches in Norway are actually packed on Christmas Eve. A friend of mine, who is a priest, once came up with a funny saying during the sermon that special evening. Looking out over his nicely dressed congregation sitting very, very tight in the benches he said: “Welcome to church, nice to see you all. Avoid the Christmas rush, come to church every Sunday.”
The core of the Christmas gospel is that God is incarnated. God has become one of us. Through Jesus he wants to bring peace and life to all men. It started with the birth of a child in the poorest place of all. Vulnerable he came to us all, born in a stable, laid in a crib between shepherds, Maria, Joseph, and some wise men, with all the world represented in those who were present. They look down at him and knelt before him, and later on, they looked up to him.
And the angles sang: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and Peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased!”
It would be a pity if this message gets drowned in the heap of Christmas presents, in the colourful light decorations and paper wrappings, in our hunt for the perfect feast.
The Church calls the last month before Christmas the time of Advent. The word comes from Latin and means to come. The time of Advent has many traditions. In most homes they light the candles of Advent. It consists of four candles, one for each of the four Sundays before Christmas Eve. The colour of the candles is violet, symbolic of for love and repentance. In schools and kindergartens they do the same and sing songs made for the occasion.
Making delicious food and Christmas cakes is a good tradition and is practiced by most people in the time of Advent, but remember you are not allowed to taste them before Christmas. That is naturally an irresistible temptation; a whole month preparing the most scrumptious dishes without tasting them. Impossible! No wonder that during January the workout centres are full of people who want to lose weight.
The dinner menu on Christmas Eve is very traditional and differs a lot depending on what part of the country you come. I come from the west coast of Norway and we always eat meat from mutton together with mashed kohlrabi. With that we drink beer and a small glass of spirits, aquavit. In other parts along our long western coast, they have boiled fish, cod, and potatoes and vegetables. In the eastern part of Norway, they mostly have pork, sausages and all kind of vegetables. I can tell you everything is delicious. And of course, the dessert is very important. It has to be sweet, with fruit and berries or pudding, and Christmas cakes of at least seven sorts.
After dinner we open the Christmas gifts, and all the secrets are revealed. The joy and celebration goes on till as long as you can manage and the night turns “silent and holy.”
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