Norwegian Christmas!

Dear all Costa Women Members.

A greeting from Norway and minus 20 degrees… I wanted to share with you our tradition here in Norway, how we celebrate Christmas and hopefully spread some Christmas Spirit with that. As I sit here in the kitchen of my parents house, with my hot cup of the and look out the window – the ground is white and the branches on the trees are frosty, it looks like a winter wonderland!

Today we are going to the forrest with the kids to choose and cut our own Christmas tree, this is a great experience for the whole family. We will then take the tree home and decorate it the whole family together and then put all the Christmas presents under. After that we will sit in front of the fire, with some Christmas biscuits and just hang out. My favourite time of Christmas, where nobody has to go anywhere and everybody just relaxes!

On the 23rd of December, the day before Christmas for us, we make rice porridge. This is served warm and an almond is hidden inside one of the plates, the person that get the almond wins a present. 🙂 After that we will have some Norwegian Christmas “tapas”; smoked salmon, ‘rakafisk’, sylte (google it) and maybe even taste the main course for Christmas Eve: Ribs!

Christmas Eve in the morning we wake up and watch TV, all the lovely Disney Christmas Classics and another couple of moives that I remember from MY childhood! I am so happy to have my children learn the same traditions. We stay in our pyjamases most morning before we get dressed up and ready for Christmas at 5 p.m. Then we hear the bells ring from the church, and that is a symbol for us that Chrismtas has started. We sit down at the table and eat our traditional Christmas food. This is ribs, as mentioned above, meatballs, sausages, potatoes, sour crout, red crout, brussel sprouts and craneberry sause. Yum yum.

After dinner, is the time to open all the presents. And, there are usually a lot of presents, however, this year we have done a secret santa (http://www.drawnames.com/) for the adults and concentrated the presents on the kids! Sometimes, even Father Christmas, comes for the kids! And that is the rest of the evening, accompanied by desert which is cold rice porridge with raspberry sauce and sugar.

On the 25th of December, we visit family, go for walks, hang out, play games and just to things together – adults and children. The importance is that we do things together! Share memories and time!

So, from Norway with wishes for the Best Christmas you want and a Successful, Exciting New Year!

Mona 🙂