Nothing makes me as concious of traditions as Christmas. I don't think it can be said that I'm a very traditional person in general, but Christmas is different. It is THE tradition. The sun turns, and the days get brighter. If you've ever lived in northern countries you know why this is so important. It has been celebrated in one way or another since time immemorial, and are still celebrated even though peoples, religion and culture have changed. The forms might vary, but we are still celebrating the same thing.
As usual, I spent December in my family's farm in Eastern Norway; but Christmas itself I celebrated in Helsinki and with my husbands family.
In Flesberg, getting into the Christmas feeling was easy.
First of all, everything looked pretty much like a Christmas card. Glittering snow covered trees and mountains, smoke trailed lazily from the chimney, and rabid little birds was in a feeding frenzy over the fat-covered nuts and sunflower seeds my mum hangs in the trees in the garden. And I was skiing through this jolly glory accompanied by one of my parents' dogs: Topsy. Pure winter enjoyment.
Inside I busied myself with christmas preparations. I usually finnish the presents before 1st of December so that I do not have to stress about it, but this year I had decided to make several of the presents by hand, so it took a bit more time. For example: I knitted a pair of mittens for my nephew modeled after an old child mitten I found. That took ages, since there was no pattern. The mitten was patched in places so I could not see what the original pattern had been but had to guess, and anyway I have never knited anything with a pattern before. Usually I knit stripes, period. Needless to say, I made lots of mistakes and had to do everything over again several times. And in a year or two, the darn things won't fit him anymore.
Another important Christmas preparation is to make cookies and candy. And it is the thing I like the most. Both the annual donut making day with my friend Ida, and fiddling around in the kitchen on my own. The smells and taste is just marvelous, and this year Loreena McKennit had released a new christmas
album: A midwinter night's dream. Perfect listening when making your own gløgg a late december evening.
I've tried several gløgg recepies, but this is my favourite:
- 1 bottle of white wine
- 1 decilitre of demera sugar
- 1 teaspoon of cardamom kernels
- a bit of chopped fresh ginger
- 10 cloves
- about 3/4 decilitre calvados
Heat wine, sugar and spices (Make sure it does not boil!). Turn the oven off and let it be for a couple of hours. Sieve it to remove the spices, they have done their job now. Heat gently and add the calvados, chopped almonds and sultana raisins.This year I also made marzipan myself for the first time. It's surprisingly easy, although quite a lot of work.
Munching marzipan is rather important in Norwegian Christmas traditions, and the grand prize for finding the almond in the Christmas porridge is the marzipan piggy (marzipan shaped as a jolly pig, for those who might wonder). When celebrating Christmas with my husband for the first time I was rather surprised to learn he doesn't really fancy marzipan. He even won the piggy, but he only had a small taste and declared it "too sweet". Later on I've noticed the shocking lack of decent marzipan in Finnish shops. No marzipan sweets at all, just a few sad and tiny packs of garishly coloured icky stuff in the cake decoration department if one is lucky. Finns are strange, thank the gods that the ingredients are available so that I can make it myself when I'm here in Helsinki.
Overall, I think the selection of sweet Christmas treats are rather better in Norway. A subjective view of course, but there is no doubt that there is a lot
more of them than in Finland.
I'm afraid me and Finnish Christmas have come off on a wrong footing. It all started when I went off the plane and saw snowflakes twirling in the air. I immediately stared humming "let it snow", and if I hadn't had such a heavy bag i would have taken a few dancing steps. Unfortunately, the snow must have come with the aeroplane, because when I went out of the airport all I could see was darkness and wet little pools of water. Oh well, the darker the outside the brighter the candles and light inside. But then I made the very bad decision of going to Stockman the twenty-second of December. Stockman is a absolutely horrid place at the best of times, a crowded and confusing shopping mall of the worst kind (crowded and confusing can be nice if it also has a big dose of charm and friendliness. Stockman have a distinct lack of both those traits). Right before Christmas it is best described as one of Dante's circles of hell. I would never have dared venture into it if I hadn't been looking for some Christmas dinner ingredients that you can't find in ordinary grocery stores here. Well, I didn't find them in Stockman either, so my suffering was in vain. Only after some calming hours in a cosy pub with a good friend did I feel ok again, but I still felt the deprivation of my serene mountain valley.
Eventually Christmas eve arrived, and we went to my parents in law for dinner. Which is delicious. It feels a bit odd to eat ham on Christmas eve, since I connect it more with ordinary Sunday dinners, but it was very well done. And there is several interesting stews, my favourite is the carrot one. During the whole evening there was also opening of presents (I especially enjoyed the stuff my sister in law brought home from Japan), munching of chocolate and drinking of beer. An added bonus was the tv showing
the disney show that was one of the highlights of my childhoods Christmas.
And finally I found the feeling of Christmas peace. Half sleeping in the couch with Tommi's arms around me, warm and full of food, I felt the sun had turned in a proper and right manner this year too. We go toward brighter days.
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