God Jul og Godt Nytt År

Hello how is the Christmas celebration coming along. For us in Norway it officially starts today 23rd Dec - the Lille Juleaften ( Little Christmas Eve), when most offices close by mid day and people rush home to decorate their Christmas trees. The last important shopping day and the radio said that it has been record breaking this year with 200 credit card transactions per SECOND - 7.2 million transactions in one day. That is a lot, for the population of Norway being just about 4.5 million. 

With most decorations already in place

finished the last bit shopping :-) and the tree was all ready to be brought in around 5 PM. Care has to be taken that the outside and inside temp difference is not vast to sustain it longer

While I was setting up the dinner table - kids and Sekhar got busy in the kitchen cooking the traditional Norwegian dinner (BTW is different in different parts of Norway). We chose to make PinneKjøtt - salted and smoked lamb to be cooked on the Pine twigs which used to be a well-kept secret in the valleys and fjords of Western Norway, served together with potatoes, sausages, mashed Rutabaga(Swede) and a sauce made from the juices of cooking the meat.  

While enjoying the desert platter with the traditional seven types of cakes / cookies

my son got busy arranging the Juletre (Xmas tree). With Lots of fun discussions of how it should and should not be - daughter directing the color scheme among other things, Sekhar documenting with his camera and Sankalp putting up things (returning half the things I gave him, back into the box), laughing at the memories of their childhood craft classes,  poking fun at the nice and not so nice things they made - the juletre decoration was finally completed.

 

 Tomorrow 24th Dec is the main Christmas Eve here, contrary to the 25th as in India and we are heading to a friend's place for the traditional Norwegian Christmas dinner. I sign off now for this year wishing you all God Jul and Godt Nytt År - meaning a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Click here to see how we say it from the snowland.