A Norwegian Christmas
A Norwegian Christmas is filled with many celebrations and traditions, old and new. As the snow falls, the white landscape is the first sign of Christmas and Norwegians start to prepare for their long season of juletid.
November
As the snow comes, Norway enters the Christmas season early with a series of Christmas parties. Work, clubs, schools and every other organisation hold their Christmas parties throughout November/early December. It is very usual for Norwegians to attend several parties over this time. The children also have parties at school and kindergarten called nissefest.
City Lights
Every year, usually at the end of November when the dark season has set in, each city has a lighting of the City Lights ceremony, complete with parade and an honorary person pulling the big switch to light up the city streets.
Advent
Advent means ‘coming’ and is a preparation time for Christians to celebrate the Nativity. The Advent Season starts on Advent Sunday which marks four Sundays before Christmas. A candelabra that holds four candles is used to commemorate each Sunday. On the first Sunday the first candle is lit. On the second Sunday the first two candles are lit. and so forth. At each lighting of the candles special song is recited.
Song: The Advent Song – in Norwegian with English translation
This season starts Christmas decorating. Norwegians get together in their families and communities to have Christmas workshops to make cards, cakes and decorations. It is also typical for Norwegian homes to have Advent calendars or Christmas calendars to count down the days to Christmas. These are filled with presents and goodies.
Advent also starts the Christmas concert season. In every city, every choir, band and music group have their annual Christmas performances in churches throughout the city.
Lighting of the Christmas Tree
In each city a huge Christmas tree stands tall in the centre square. Usually on the first Sunday of Advent, the township gathers together for the Lighting of the Christmas Tree celebration. When the tree is lit the people hold hands and dance around the Christmas tree singing carols. Julenisse (Santa claus) makes an appearance and hands out gifts to the children – normally chocolates and clementines.
Throughout Christmas carollers sing to the townsfolk and children often dance around the Christmas tree. The tree stays up until the 13th January – the official end of the Norwegian Christmas season.
St Lucia Day
Lucia Dagen is celebrated on the 13th December every year in schools around Norway. A girl (or now a boy too) is chosen to represent St Lucia and wears a wreath of candles around her head (electric lights – for fire safety). As the children sing the St Lucia hymn, the girl leads a precession of children through the classrooms handing out treats – special Lussekatter (Lucia sweet bread/boller).
Song: Sankta Lucia – in Norwegian with English translation
Little Christmas Eve
This day is on the 23rd of December and is when the decorations are hung and the Christmas tree is lit. This is generally a whole family affair in preparation for Christmas Eve. Hot chocolate is a common treat and decorations include hand-made baskets and paper chains, pepperkaker (gingerbread) and also a string of little Norwegian flags. Norwegian’s prefer to use real Christmas trees as they give off a nice smell throughout the house. They do make a big mess, especially keeping them inside for nearly four weeks so a special tree mat underneath is used to collect the needles. The trees don’t go to waste – at the end of Christmas they are used for firewood.
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is a normal day, people go about their daily routines and finish their shopping. At 4 pm the church bells ring throughout the town which means Christmas has officially started. This also starts the first Church service for Christmas.
The Sølvguttene (the Silver Boys Choir), have their special annual Christmas concert on national television.
Christmas Eve dinner is set on the table with ribs, white Christmas sausage, lutefisk, pinnekjøtt or ham, winter vegetables, sour kraut, rich gravy and cranberry sauce. Gløgg, (mulled wine with spices, nuts and fruit) is a common Christmas drink. The family sit and enjoy dinner together with Christmas carols playing in the background.
It’s then time to sit around the Christmas tree. Julenisse comes to the home and the family sings a Christmas song to him before he hands out presents and treats to the children. The family open presents, play games, sing carols and spend the rest of the night enjoying one anothers company.
Christmas Day
Christmas day is a time to visit family and friends. Churches have services and children play with their new toys or go outside in the snow. For dinner extended family come together for a big Christmas feast.
Christmas Day marks the first day of Christmas. Following are 20 days of juletid (Christmas time) celebrations. This day is also a flag raising day in Norway. Many Norwegians have flag poles in their front yards or attached to the house for hanging the national flag on special days of the year. Normally the flag goes up at sunrise and is taken down at sunset, however, since there are not sunrises or sunsets during the dark season in Northern Norway, 10am and 2pm are used as the standard times.
Boxing Day
This is known as Andre juledag (the Second Day of Christmas) and is also a public holiday to relax and enjoy family. This day is also a flag day.
From Boxing Day until New Years Eve it is called Romjul (Space Christmas) which is the ‘space’ between Christmas and New Years. It is a quiet time of Christmas where the streets a bare and the shops have limited hours as Norwegians spend this time with family. However, the local sledding hills and parks are filled with families skiing and sledding, and having bonfires and BBQs in the snow.
Julebukk
Unfortunately a dying tradition, julebukk (yule goat) is a childrens activity that shares the joy of Christmas. In old Norse tradition julebukk (Yule goat) is the symbol of the pagan goat and represents the ghosts of winter nights. Much of the elements of today’s Santa Claus comes from the traditions of the julebukk such as giving presents, receiving sweet treats, picking out who is naughty and nice and, of course, his magic. When Christianity appeared the pagan rituals of julebukk were replaced by children wearing masks to go from house to house to receive treats (similar to Halloween). Today children dress up and sing carols at doorsteps. They often give gifts as well as receiving them.
New Years Eve
Norwegians watch the television broadcast of the annual address to the nation by the King of Norway.
Family and friends celebrate the New Year with fireworks and parties. It is usual to have the whole neighbourhood out in the street socialising.
New Years Day
This day is a public holiday. A broadcast of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert is shown on national television, followed by the international ski jumping competition at Garmisch-partenkirchen. This day is also a flag day.
13th Day of Christmas
On 6th January is Three Kings Day – the traditional day of when the three wise men visited the baby Jesus in the manger. This day is also a premature end-of -Christmas party for those who can’t wait until the 20th day to chop down and chop up their Christmas trees.
20th day of Christmas
On the 13th January Christmas is officially over. Decorations are put away and the Christmas tree is chopped into firewood and used in the fire. The final Christmas parties are held. Children and families sing carols and dance around the Christmas tree one last time. Julenisse makes his last appearance to hand out the last of the Christmas treats. And the greeting ‘God jul’ (Merry Christmas) is used for one last time.
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There is always something beautiful waiting for us around the corner.
Norwegians are starting to get adventurous with cooking on the barbie.
Towards the water in a beautiful pocket of leafy oak trees is the Byneset Church.
The walking-street takes you from Central Station to the Royal Palace.
Traditional Norwegian cuisine is based on natural resources.
Having married into a Swedish-descendant family, I’ve been trying to learn more and more about Scandinavian traditions. We tried our first St Lucia Day last year! http://twolittlevikings.blogspot.com/2007/12/happy-st-lucia-day.html
Thanks for sharing the Norwegian version!
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from L-Jay:
St Lucia Day is much bigger in Sweden than Norway. They have huge parades in the centre of town and it is a big honour to be selected as Lucia. Your daughter is gorious – and I love her St Lucia costume!
Hi L-Jay,
I enjoyed reading this post, well done. Thank you!
Thank you for listening this, it is very educational. I to only recently tried a St Lucia Day. Love the pictures.
Thank you for sharing this information. When I was growing up, my parents were very active in an organization called Sons of Norway here is the US. They always celebrated the St.Lucia Day and one of the girls in the lodge dressed up and carried the candles. I think I even have pictures of my nieces wearing the outfits. We always celebrate Christmas Eve with a dinner and gifts. My mother always made rummegrot (sp?) and some kind of rice cream that was a dessert. L-Jay, I think you gave me an idea for a blog post. I’m going to find the pictures and write up about an American Norwegian Christmas. Thanks!
BTW, thank you for you excellent point on Heart Choices about charity. I wrote a followup to you but with Blogger, it doesn’t send it to you so it’s in the comments on the blog post.
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from L-Jay:
Wonderful! I’d love to read about your American Norwegian Christmas. Every region in Norway has their own traditions so it will be interesting to see the traditions of your parents from Nord-Trondelag.
Rømmegrøt is sour cream porridge. I’ve never tried it but Moose just lit up when I mentioned it just now…lol. He is telling me we have to make it this weekend…lol.
The rice cream desert is just called ‘riskrem’ – just a rise porridge but cold and with whipped cream – mmmh – yummy. Moose’s family put almond essence and chopped nuts in too.
I follow the Sons of Norway blog. I’m so amazed at how many Norwegian-Americans there are. Moose has a lot of Norwegian-American family in the States. I would love to go to the States one time to attend one of the Scandinavian festivals.
My children used to love going ‘Julebukk’ during romjula and would get all dressed up in the their ‘lusekofter’, knickers and socks, and paint big red cheeks on their faces. It was still a tradition that was very alive and well during the 90s in the area of Norway where I lived. Christmas just isn’t the same without children.
Wow what an educational and informative guide to the Norwegian Christmas. Thanks L-Jay : )
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from L-Jay:
Være så god!
My wife is Swedish and has always celebrated St. Lucia’s day. It was nice finding this blog and reading up on all the traditions.
Merry Xmas from Qld, Australia
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from L-Jay:
God jul!
all the Norwegian traditions are fond memories of my Mother telling me stories of her childhood in Arendal, Norway. I try still to keep some alive and passing it on to mychildren. I love to bake krumkake and berlinerkranser around the holidays.It just wouldn’t feel like Christmas without the spice of cardamom on my tongue!LOL!
It’s a little late now now but you forgot that we go around the Christmas tree while singing Christmas songs and of course watching Dinner for One or “Grevinnen Og Hovmestern” on Little Christmas Eve ‘Lille Juleaften’
Ellers håper jeg du hadde en riktig god jul og godt nyttår
MVH
Sarah
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from L-Jay:
I have never seen it in my life…lol – not in Norway, Australia or England. Moose tells me it is only on late at night (well, after the kids have gone to bed). I think it is really bizarre that part of Christmas tradition here is to sit and watch tv a lot of the time…lol.
My paternal grandmother’s family was from Norway. She was the only child born in North America. She passed down a tradition we still do today of dancing around the tree, singing Christmas carols, while holding hands. In fact, my father passed away six years ago, and every Christmas eve we take a small tree down to the cemetery and continue the tradition (despite strange looks from other cemetery visitors).
At the end we always sing a song that we’re told is a traditional Christmas song — at least in our family’s ancestry. For years I’ve been trying to find the music — or even anybody who knows what we’re talking about!
The song (at least after it has been sung by English speakers for two generations) sounds something like this: A yule mit en glidden a bons fig a loose. Mi youtsa mig gallen…. (or something like that).
Then we sing a part in English where we sing: “We clap our hands like this; we sing a little song; so glad are we, so glad are we. We do a little dance and we curtsy.” (We turn in a circle, then bow to each other.)
Have any of you ever heard of anything even close to this? Or do I sound like a crazy lunatic? If anybody can help me, I’d appreciate it.
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from L-Jay:
Dancing around the Christmas tree singing carols is usual in Norway – in the cemetery is a little out there. The song you are talking about is ‘O Yule med din glede‘.