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.
