How to Make Christmas Baskets
Please visit our updated post Norwegian Christmas Heart Baskets with three different easy-to-make baskets complete with instructions and pictures.
Before Christmas our friends get together and have a decoration party. We pool together all our crafty-stuff, paper, toilet rolls, egg cartons, pictures, pine cones, and lots of glue and glitter. We play Christmas music as we make cards and tree decorations. This year we also made a Thankful Tree – a bare branch filled with colourful paper leaves with the things we are thankful for written on them.
There is always one decoration that is made every year – Julekurve (Christmas basket). It is a heart shaped basket made of paper and hangs on the Christmas tree. It can also hang on doors or on the end of curtain rails, and if you are lucky, you will find them filled with all sorts of goodies.
How to Make Julekurver
A decoration party is always fun for the kids, but it is great for adults too. You get to sit around a table and catch up on life while letting your creativity run wild. This year the Pappas didn’t want to miss out and so they joined in too! (However, I think they have wised up to the best thing about a decoration party: the food!) We had Danish pastries, kakemenn (gingerbread-men without the gingerbread), Saint Lucia boller, julekake (Christmas cake) and home made gløgg!
Subscribe
RSS
Many English words actually come from old Norse language – brought by Vikings to England in medieval times. Here are some words you have probably uttered without realising you are speaking Norwegian!
Many Norwegians know what they are doing when they pick wild mushrooms. This knowledge is passed down the family during mushroom hunting trips. The hard-core mushroom hunters go into the mountain wilderness for days to get the best finds.
A popular Summer activity in Norway is kayaking. The coast of Norway is dotted with thousands of little islands making the perfect conditions for a smooth paddle.
The further ‘out of the way’ you go the more common it is to see folk cottages standing by the side of roads, along fjords or in a thicket of trees, minding their own business. 
Reindeer herding is more than just an occupation, it is a way of life and an integral part of the Sami culture and identity.
Today herding reindeer is synonymous with the Sami culture. It is recently thought that the Vikings were the first people to herd reindeer.
You are so creative L-Jay! Very cute. I love to make julekake during the Christmas season too. I leave out most of the fruit though except for raisins.
I posted a few Christmas pictures I took in my home. I may have spelled a few Norwegian words incorrectly so forgive me. I hope you enjoy. I’m still trying to find some pictures of my family’s Norwegian Christmas celebrations.
____________________
from L-Jay:
Ah, if you have a look at the fingers you’ll see it’s Moose’s hands! He was teaching me how to make the Christmas baskets while I was taking snaps. I tried it straight afterwards and well – I think I need a little more practise…lol. But I did show the Norwegians how to make a plated streamer from crepe paper