The snow had fallen thickly overnight. All along the street the houses were draped in festive lights, twinkling LED icicles and sparkling stars. There was nothing gaudy, no blow-up Father Christmases, no Christmas strobes piercing the starlit sky, no pulsating light shows. Nothing like that for this was Norway where, at the beginning of December, most Norwegian homes hang a star-shaped lamp in their windows, called “Julestjerne” or “Adventsstjerne” to symbolise the Christmas star which had guided the three wise men to the baby Jesus. There were also red, wooden candelabras with seven electric candles placed in other windows to provide comforting beacons of light throughout the long dark nights of the northern mid-winter. They are now quite common in the UK but not so in 2010 when we enjoyed our first everyone-together family Christmas in Norway.
On this Christmas morning our house was slowly waking up. Although it was nearly 9am it was still pitch dark outside and our baby grandchildren had yet to reach the age of waking up in frenzied excitement early, early, oh SO early on Christmas morning to check whether Santa had paid them a visit. That joy was yet to come in future years – mainly in England. This year was a magical one: watching the two-year old’s wonder of all things Christmassy, enjoying the baby’s discovery of wrapping paper and most of all feeling so happy and contented as the littlest ones of our family basked in the love and attention of newly met uncles and aunts. We were all together, and later on that day our ranks would swell with the hustle and bustle of visiting Norwegian grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. But as we stood looking out of the window, cradling cups of breakfast tea and waiting for the sun to rise all was calm and very peaceful.
On cue, two deer walked sedately up the middle of the street. They left deep tracks in the freshly fallen snow.
Theirs were the only tracks; there were no tyre tracks, no
footprints and no one shoveling snow. On this magical Christmas morning there
was nothing to disturb them reclaiming their old haunts, for forests came down
to the back of our daughter’s home, and the wildlife displaced by house
building had to live alongside new neighbours in new houses. These deer were
making their way home to their forest before any human neighbours got out and
about.
This Christmas morning most of those neighbours – and their cars - were slumbering late in contented rest, for all their celebrations had already happened late on Christmas Eve. For everyone else Christmas had finished and “romjul” had begun, a somnambulant dream-time for resting and doing nothing until the New Year and returning to work and school. It was only us Brits who were running late with our Christmas celebrations.
On Christmas Eve our Norwegian neighbours had gathered for their Christmas meals of roast pork with the crispiest crackling (ribbe) with loganberry jam, creamed potato and swedes and spicy red cabbage. Gingerbread houses had been broken and eaten. Marzipan sweets consumed and copious amounts of ‘Glog’ knocked back.
At midnight Julenissen (Santa Claus) had come knocking at everyone’s front door, magically at every front door in the whole of Norway at the same time. Excepting at one house, where, unable to find his red and white outfit, and possibly suffering from an excess of festive aquavit spirit, Santa Claus had had to use the Darth Vader outfit left over from the North Pole’s Halloween party. The children he visited as Darth Vader had been terrified. They had sobbed and screamed and no matter how many Christmas presents ‘Darth Vader-Julenissan’ had brought for them, they were inconsolable, probably scarred for life. But that’s another (true) story for another time.
In 2010 we had welcomed our second grandchild, a little boy. This was his first Christmas and his sister’s third. His mother, my daughter, had invited both sets of grandparents and her brothers and their partners, later to be their wives, to stay with her in Norway. We would later be joined by Norwegian cousins and grandparents to join in our UK-style Christmas Day celebrations. A turkey (with all the trimmings), a Christmas pudding and mince pies had all made the journey across the North Sea for this family gathering.
But first there were presents to open. The deer had disappeared into the snow-covered pine forest and the first streaks of daylight were cutting across the sky stretching from our kitchen window to the western shores of the Oslo Fjord. We barely noticed the spectacular sunrise at half past nine as we were busy exchanging presents and enjoying the delight of the two little ones for whom Christmas was a very novel experience. By now the sun was fully awake and blazing over a glittering snowscape. It was too beautiful to stay indoors and the lure of a nearby frozen lake drew uncles and aunts away from the Christmas Dinner preparations and out to join other revelers sledging in the sub-zero wonderland.
As the infants took their mid morning naps, the aromas of cooking our British Christmas meal filled the house along with the sounds of Christmas Music – all in English. The sun flooded the sitting room which like many Norwegian homes was on the first floor of the house – where it was unlikely that snow drifts would ever cover the windows! The view from higher up was spectacular. Thick snow covered every roof, every tree, every hill and even the fjord itself which was largely frozen and required ice breakers for the ships to pass through. Everything sparkled from the decorated tree inside the house to the sunlit scenes outside.
Ravenous, pink cheeked sledgers returned from their midday exertions, Norwegian grandparents roused for their second Christmas meal of the 2010 season had arrived and alcohol-flushed cooks had managed to produce a meal that was only running a little behind schedule.
By now the living room was flooded with last rosy rays of Christmas sunshine. As the sun sank behind distant, western hills, we all sat down to eat at a table bathed in sunshine. Bit by bit as the sun set, candlelight lit up a scene of happy diners and great contentment.
Traditionally Norwegian days ended at sundown – then the new day began. This partly explains why Christ’s birth – and present exchanges – are celebrated on modern Norway’s Christmas Eve. It wasn’t always so. In olden times that darkness after sunset had in fact marked the start of the next day – Christmas Day - so Christmas Day celebrations would begin early in the night.
So in keeping with the old ways of thinking I will end this Yuletide memory at sunset when it was was only half past three, when we were in the middle of our Christmas lunch and the Nordic night had already arrived to wrap up the most magical of Christmas Days in an indigo black, starry-sky blanket.
