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Christmas in the Country

By Vera Henriksen
With the compliments of
The Royal Norwegian Consulate General, Vancouver, B.C.

In big country kitchens in farms and villages off the beaten track the hectic preparations still begin weeks before the festival season. The special Christmas beer, "Juleøl", is brewed; the many traditional pork dishes are prepared; numerous kinds of small cakes (biscuits, cookies), the minimum being seven different kinds, are baked together with the "julekake", the sweet Christmas bread filled with raisins, candied peel and cardamom. The smell of Christmas fills the house, bringing the children's expectations up to fever pitch.

And then there is the traditional thorough housecleaning as the Holiday approaches, and the chopping of enough wood to keep the fires burning for at least the first three days of Christmas.

Nowadays there is, in addition, a trip to the woods to select a Christmas tree, a trip that grandfather probably did not make. For the Christmas tree was not introduced into Norway from Germany until the latter half of the nineteenth century, to the country districts it came even later.

Then finally, when Christmas Eve arrives, there is the decorating of the tree, usually done by the parents behind the closed doors of the living room, while the children are ready to burst with excitement outside.

It is also usual on Christmas Eve to make a trip to the barn with a bowl of porridge for the "nisse", the gnome who - according to superstition - is the protector of the farm. Nowadays this ceremony is performed for the benefit of the children, but grandmother may possibly have had an uneasy feeling that the little fellow might actually exist. But he is not the only one to be given a treat, the "julenek", a sheaf of oats for the birds, is mounted on a pole, and the farm animals get a special Christmas feed.

And then on Christmas Eve in the afternoon, the church bells start chiming to ring in the Holiday. For this occasion, as for other great feasts, they are not rung in the ordinary way; there is no lazy ding-dong, instead there is an intense and protracted ding-ding-ding for several minutes, as the bell is struck by a rapid succession of blows.

As the sound of the bells dies away, Christmas peace settles over the farms and the villages. Stragglers who have not yet reached their destinations hurry to join relatives and friends, while in the farm yard the snow creaks underfoot, and light from the windows glows invitingly into the dark winter afternoon.

The Christmas celebration itself begins with the solemn reading of the gospel for Christmas Day; perhaps from a family Bible that is several hundred years ol, with generations of births and baptisms, confirmations and marriages and deaths recorded on its opening pages.

After this, the family sits down for the traditional meal, which to a foreigner may seem to contrast strangely with the festive occasion. Usually the main dish is porridge, or - where available - fresh cod, or possibly "lutefisk", cod treated in a lye solution and served boiled. This traditional fare is probably a survival from pre-Reformation times, when Christmas Eve was a day of fast and abstinence. Today however the meal is rounded off with a variety of dishes that have no connection whatever with abstinence.

But the children do not usually enjoy the meal very much. Their eyes keep turning to the closed living room door, and they grow more and more impatient, with the unbearably slow pace with which their elders finish the meal. It seems to them if an eternity has passed when the big moment arrives end the door to the living room is thrown open.

The children tumble in, only to stop short, awestruck by the sight of the tree, aglow with the light from real candles, and with the neatly wrapped gifts heaped underneath.

Then follows a Norwegian, ritual known as "circling the Christmas tree". Everybody joins hands to form a ring around the tree, and the company then walk around it singing carols.

Finally, the gifts distributed, and the children can relax. The rest of the evening is spent on fun and games and there are cakes and other good things to be eaten.

On the morning of Christmas Day itself the family goes to church. In, previous times there was an early morning service, followed by a big breakfast at home. Nowadays the service is later and the traditional meal is a familiar dinner, usually with pork as the main dish.

But in some communities the church itself will be the same as in ages past, perhaps a small wooden church that has served the parish since the Middle Ages. There may be runic inspirations on the time darkened walls, paintings and carvings done during the centuries since those remote times, and - perhaps too - for those who have ears to hear it - the faint echo of the hundreds of earlier Christmas services.

But Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are only the beginning of a season of celebration lasting at least to Epiphany, and even in some places until the thirteenth of January - the twentieth day of Christmas, and the feast day of St. Canute. Then, according to a saying, "twentieth-day Canute drives away Christmas".

It is a season for socializing. In some places, though only for nostalgic reasons, people still use horse and, sleigh, and the tinkle of sleigh-bells, - may be heard among the snow-clad trees. It is a season of welcoming, of warm light streaming out of open doors as guests are received, a season of games and merriment, when nobody mentions children's bedtimes. It's also a time when children are allowed to dress up in fancy dress and to go around from one farm to another, to be treated to cakes and other delicacies wherever they come. This custom is called "to go julebukk" ("Christmas goat"), and the origin of it dates back to the Middle Ages.

This is the kind of Christmas that can still be experienced in country districts, a kind of Christmas very much like that which grandmother knew. It is, however, possible that grandmother felt like going into hibernation for a week after St. Canute had finally put an end to the festivities; they must have involved her in a quite staggering amount of work.

The oldest traditions • Christmas in the towns

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