While I have been here I’ve figured that American Christmas and Norwegian Christmas are a lot more different than I expected. I’m an exchange student from Norway, and you’re Christmas is weird, but in a good way though.
In Norway we have an advent calendar on TV that shows on a channel at 6 pm every day. The advent calendar has been a tradition in Denmark since 1962, so I was very surprised when I heard that America doesn’t have it. Usually we follow someone and they have a mission or something they have to do during Christmas, but it is also just someone who talks about Christmas and counts down. in most of them it’s songs that you learn while you watch it because it plays everyday. Every episode lasts approximately 15-30 minutes depending on how old it is and what the plot is. Now that it’s almost a new calendar every other year it’s a lot to catch up with, but we still watch like 3-5 different calendars. And this takes up a lot of time, but it’s worth watching because it brings everyone in the Christmas mood.
Next thing on the list is Santa Lucia. On December 13th it’s a saint called Santa Lucia, her name means lightning and she was so kind with everyone while she lived. So when she died all the people in the town wore white and held a light while they were singing. This is the story I know, but it’s probably not entirely true. So now the student council at the school dress up all white and walk in the halls of the school and sing the song. When they go into the classrooms they hand out “lussekatter” which is a type of pastry.
We celebrate Christmas on the 24th and nothing happens on the 25th, we’re all done by then. On the 23 we have this show called the “evening before the evening” where it is some celebrities that talk, do some activities and show us how to get the perfect food. The last thing that happens on the show is an old German short clip about a Butler and the Countess, and is called “Dinner for One”. On the 24th we wake up and usually watch Mickey Mouse and a German-Czechoslovakian movie from 1973 called “Three Wishes for Cinderella” with a really bad dubbing. After that someone goes to church and then after that to some family members where we eat and open presents and walk around the Christmas tree and sing.
The food we eat is very separated and depends on where you’re from in the country. If you are from the east you eat the side of the pig with a lot of fat on top that has to be crispy. Then we got western Norway, where we eat the ribs of sheep that have to be damped for like 30 hours. And then we got the northern and southern of Norway who eat fish. Nothing more to say than that is weird. The sides are mashed potatoes and mashed kohlrabi (the best), medister cakes (I don’t even know what those are made of), some thick sausages, red and white cabbage, I think that’s it. For dessert we have like rice cream where we put an almond in the pot and then the person who finds the almond in their bowl wins a marzipan pig
This is some of the biggest traditions we have in Norway during Christmas time, but of course it’s a lot more like the music we listen to, and that we actually get to meet Santa on Christmas eve.
