How to Celebrate a Norwegian Style Christmas
Christmas in Norway is the time for children to enjoy, adults in the family to gather around and have fun, Christmas songs and traditional food.
In Norway, at the end of December, the days are short and since Christmas is the time of the year when the sun turns and the days start to get longer, traditionally, it was the time to celebrate the harvest, fertility, birth and death.
Nowdays, Christmas is the most popular celebration of the year for families and friends especially for the children. In Norway, Christmas is synonymous with candlelight, sitting around the fire, freshly baked breads and cakes, the smell of spruce and pine and Julenissen, the Norwegian Santa.
Here are some handy hints to celebrate Christmas Norwegian style.
A few suggestions
- Start preparing for Christmas four weeks before the Christmas Day by taking part in the Advent celebrations and mark the occasion by putting up a Nativity scene.
- Since Christmas looks cheerless and colorless because of the cold weather in Norway; the Norwegians prefer to add as much color to the festival as possible. So get an actual Christmas tree instead of an artificial one and decorate it with all kinds of colorful ornaments like white lights, tinsel, Norwegian flags and other Christmas ornaments.
- Make candles to put on the wreaths and on the Christmas tree along with paper baskets filled with candies and sweets.
- Look for Christmas trees in churches, town squares, shopping malls, offices, and other public places and expect them to be brightly lit up with multicolored LED decoration lights.
- The Norwegian Santa Claus, Julenissen, brings presents to all the nice children on Christmas Eve and prefers to deliver all the presents himself.
- Remember Christmas is not complete without until family and friends gather around the Christmas tree and dance and sing around it on Christmas Eve.
- Bake seven kinds of cake and traditional Christmas cookies like lussekatter, pepperkaker and kvite kakemenn and share them with your loved ones.
- Cook a traditional Christmas dinner with juicy pork or fish or mutton ribs depending upon the region to which you belong.
Do’s
- Bake bread with a cross on it to keep evil spirits at bay.
Don’ts
- Don’t copy all traditions or you will end up working hard and having no fun at all.