Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

New years Eve!

The turkey is in the oven, stuffed with grand aunt Anna's very special stuffing. Anna lived much of her grown up life in America, but came back to Norway to spend her old age here. I was lucky to get to know here the last years she lived, and I remember many wonderful parties and gatherings in her Amerikan style house at Moi where my family in law lives. When she came back turkey was an almost unknown meal here in Norway, so she had a hard time finding birds for her Christmas meals. Her stuffing is lovely, and I always make ALOT of it - sometimes it feels like we are eating more stuffing than turkey :-) The waldorf-salad is finished, and we have rice left-overs since the party. Marta and I were downtown this morning for a few leisure errands, and on our way home we stopped at a favourite sweet shop to buy sweets for tonight. New Years Eve means extra sweets, and lots of sweets.

We will be alone tonight, the six of us. Usually we spend this last evening of the year with friends, but we have been so busy with celebrations and houseguests this Christmas it is good to be alone. The oldest kids will go out to meet friends later on, but first we'll have the meal together, and then chatting, playing games and may be watch a video. A perfect way of saying good bye to the old year and wish the new one welcome.

Terje and Marta are out ice skating now, and with no more dinner preparations I have time to write the last chapter in my 2005 diary, think out some new year's resolutions, and travel a couple of chapters with Alexandra David-Neel to the old Thibet.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYBODY. My prayer tonight is that we all will contribute, big or small, to make the world a better place to live in during the next year.

Party is over!

The party last night was great. After almost three days of food prapartaions it was lovely to have family and friends, 30 all in all, here to celebrate Terje's 50th birthday. Terje wished everybody welcome, but the rest program for the rest of the party was a huge surprise for him. We ate and played games, sang and talked, and my mother and brother played piano and viola for us, and my father whistled.

Enjoy a few photos:

Armchairtravelling.

I am busy today preparing for houseguests, which will arrive in about one hour, and preparing for the BIG party tomorrow - the celebrating of my husband's 50th birthday. I love all the food preparations, but in between I need to rest mind and body. My perfect pasttime then is armchairtravelling. And my armchairtravel this Christmas goes to East Asia, to Laos and to Thibet, and to the Mekong River.

I started the read a new (for me) book the other night, My Journey to Lhasa by Alexandra David-Neel. This French women died in 1969 at the aga of 101. She spent moany of her years in Asia, most of them in Thibet, and she is the only western woman who has succeeded in entering the forbidden cisy Lhasa. She wrote about her adventures, and the book, which originally was published in 1927 tells the remarcably story of this travel. And it is remarkably well written.

I love to read travel literature, and most of all travel books written by women. I have a huge library of this type of books, and they take me all over the world. Alexandra David-Neel's trip to Lhasa started near the Mekong river. I was lucky enough to visit part of this river last year when I spent two weeks on Laos with the Norwegian humanitarian organisation Norwegian Church Aid. We spent two days on the Mekong Flood, one day in speed-boats, another day 10 wonderful hours in a river boat taking is from the north of Laos into the wonderful UN Heritage Lis city Loang Prabang. A wonderful travel visiting wonderful people. A travel I will never forget. I have a few photos for you so you can armchair travel to Laos together with me:

3rd Day of Christmas

On this 3rd day of Christmas, St. Johannes day, I'm showing you my snowman collection. Or the big part of it. Marta also has some snowmen up in her room. My snowman collectcion is a Christmas collection, and during advent there is one snowman in my basket every day. I love to see the collection growing in the window facing the front garden.

There is more kitchenwork for me today - in my next life I think I will start a bed&breakfast, at least I get lots of practice this Christmas. We are going to a huge family party this afternoon. I will bring a cream cake iced with marzipan, and fresh baked bread and sweet&sour herring. The food basket is ready, now I am baking and cooking for Terje's huge party which will be in just two days.

St. Stefanus Day

Today is St. Stefanus Day or Martyr's Day. Stefanus, or Stephen as is his English name, is the first deacon in the Bible. You can read his story in The Acts 6 and 7. He told the truth about Christ clearly, and were stoned to death because of that. Is it unproper to celebrate this day just after all the joy of yesterday when Christ was born in Betlehem? No, of course it is not. God became human into OUR world, and our world is not free of sin, free of evil. And it was not free of sin and evil in Betlehem 2000 years ago. The stoning of Stefanus shows us that. Still, God is born into our world, that's what we all can depend on, and that's what Stefanus depended on when he died in the name of Jesus Christ.

The story of Jesus Christ is told by artists all over the world for 2000 years. I am looking at Rembrants painting from the life of Jesus these days, I have a book where the paintings are collected. But today I wanted to find paintings of St. Stefanus, and I found several in a book I have featuring the Italian/Venecian artist Carpaccio. I saw several of his paintings in Venice in September.  He has made four panels of Stefanus, none of them hung in Venice now though. The Stoning of St. Stephen, which I have photographed from my book, hangs in Stuttgart. It is the last of the four canvases in the Stephen cycle, and was painted in 1520.

Art is essential for living, and art can be so many different things. I try to live my life as a painting painted by God, and it makes my life worth living that He, the greatest Master of all, mames new stroke son the painting every day.

Christmas Day

In the days of Herod the King, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph; and the virgin's name was Mary.

And the angel said, Thou shalt bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be called the Son of the Highest: and of his kingdom there shall be no end. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord. And the angel departed from her.

It came to pass that there went out a decree that all the world should be taxed, every one in his own city. And Joseph went up from Nazareth to the city called Bethlehem, to be taxed with Mary his wife, being great with child. And she brough forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

There were in the same country shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night. And the angel of the Lord came upon them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: I bring you good tidings of great joy. For unto you is born a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clotes, lying in a manger. Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host saying, Glory to God in the highets, and on eafrth peace, good will toward men.

This is the most beautiful story I know, taken from the world's most important book. God saw his creatures and saw that we needed to be saved from evil. And in his almight love for us he opened the gate of Paradise from the inside and came out to us humans, born like a poor child in a manger in Bethlehem. Born by God's love to give the world hope. This is what give me strength to live my life, day by day. This is what gives me hope, trust and eternal love.

Our Christmas Day started with a mass in the Nidaros Cathedral where I met God's love story again, and I could take part in the world choir singing the praise of God the Almight. The rest of the day has been spend as we do every Christmas, with a family party at my parents house. 12 around the table for three full meals, dinner, coffee and supper, dancing around the Christmas tree singing the old merry Christmas dances, playing board games, guessing quizes and having a wonderful time. We are blessed with a big and loving family. The photo is of one of my many mangers. This one was bought in Avignon in Provence a few years ago, and I got three new figures in my Christmas stocking this morning. Terje was in Avignon this fall, and bought me the three vise men. Provence have a very special traditions with mangers, called Crèches at Santons en terre provencale (I will write more about that tradition later) I also have two photos for you from our tables yesterday, the lunchtable when we had rice porride, and part of the dinner table.

Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve is the main day of celebrating Christmas here in Norway. I remember when I was a child this was always such a very long day, with waiting, waiting and waiting. My strongest memory is from the year I was around 12. I was the first one up early in the morning, and when I came out in our diningroom, which was right outside my bedroom, my parents had set up a huge trainset, complete with village, mountains and everything. A wonderful surprise for me and my brothers.

Traditionally the Christmas tree should be decorated the night before Christmas Eve by the parents in the family, and the children were not allowed to see it untill Christmas Eve. Nowadays it is more common to decorate it together with the children on "lille julaften" (Little Christmas Eve) as we call the day before Christmas Eve. Our gifts found their way under out tree last night, and after we had enjoyed our "lutefisk" meal with my parents (sorry, I was too busy preparing the food and serving, so not even one photo were taken) Marta had a long time lying on the floor looking at all the wrapped gifts. Oh, wonderful excitement of a child's Christmas. Ingrid is 16 now, and already see that she is growing and with that missing some of the child excitement.

Our kids watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban untill after 11pm last night, so luckily Marta slept quite long this morning. And as soon as her big brother Øystein is up from bed, he will take her out cross country skiing. He is almost 22 now, but remembers everything about long waiting Christmas Eves :-). At 1.30pm we will eat rice porridge for traditional Christmas Eve lunch. There will be one single almond hidden in the porridge, and the one who finds it will be given a gift, a marzipan pig :-) At 4pm we'll go to the local church for a Christmas Carol, and then home to eat the huge, traditional Christmas dinner - salted and dried rib of mutton. The best meal of the year :-) The mutton is damped on birch sticks which Terje finds in the garden, and eated with potatoes, carrots and swede. For dessert we have tradidionally had a cloudberry cream, but as the kids don't fancy that, we will this year make a rice porride cream (another trad. Norwegian dessert) with strawberries. After dinner it is time for the opening of gifts, which always takes a long time of course, and then the night goes on with phonecalls to all our close family, walking around the Christmas tree singing all the traditional Christmas carols, coffee and ALL the different Christmas cookies which have been baked the last weeks, a board game or two, starting to read the newest books, listening to the newest tapes and so on. At 11pm I and Terje go downtown to the midnight mass in the Nidaros Cathedral. This year there will also be a special concert on Norwegian television from the Cathedral, the American St.Olavs Choir, and the Girl's Choir of the Cathedral will take part. This concert was broadcasted on one of the big American televisions a few days ago, many of my American friends saw it I know. I will tape it and see it later during Christmas.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU, FROM OUR HOME HERE IN TRONDHEIM.

December 23rd

As I said yesterday I planned to spend today in the Kitchen. And there I have been, baking, making sweet and sour tomato herring, making flower dacorations, more baking and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. From the kitchendoor I can see right into the livingroom, where Marta and Terje put up the Christmas tree and decorated it. I did help with the decorations of course :-) Terje and Marta picked the best tree every this year (which I think they do every year) What a pleasure to bring out all the Christmas decorations, to find vintage favorites, handmade ornaments the kids made when they were small, the first sewn hearts I made 25 years ago when Terje and I had our first Christmas tree.....Blessed moments.

Before decoration the tree Marta and I were out to give the birds a little extra for Christmas. The feeders are right outside our livingroom window, where we can watch the busy birds as long as we have daylight. When Marta and I had breakfast (a little late) this morning, we enjoyed three squirrels fighting to get the best seeds, and the birds sitting around  in the huge pines waiting unpatiently for the squirrels to finish their meal.

Last night Marta and I made marzipan, coloured it and made small sweets. And we decorated a gingerbread house with icing and sweet - it looks like a real "Hans und Gretchen" house now. We will use it in our traditional Christmas "nisse"-village though, together with a log house my father in law made many years ago, and our collection of nisser. Nisser are Norwegian Santa Clauses.

I now need to do the last tidying and cleaning in the house, then my brother and his family are coming over to exchange gifts - and hopefully have time for some coffee. And then my parents are coming for dinner - the traditional Norwegian "lutefisk" (lyed stockfish sais my dictionary) I will take photos and post later tonight or tomorrow.

December 22nd

The house is looking more and more ready for Christmas, and Marta's candle where 24 days were marked when we started to burn it the 1st of December, is now almost burnt down. I had my last day at work yesterday, and is today home doing alot of homefun. As we will celebrate my husband's 50th birthday next week, most of the baking I do now is in preparation of that. So much food is needed when around 40 people shall celebrate the world's best man!

Terje and Marta were out buying the Christmas tree yesterday. But it still stands in the garage, and will stand there till tomorrow. Here in Norway we NEVER decorate the indoor tree untill the night before Christmas Eva. I know one exception though. Marta is spending today at her grandparents house (my parents) together with two of her cousins living here in Trondheim, and they are going to decorate grandma and grandpa's tree.

Today I want to say a huge and heartfelt thank to all of you who has sent comments, e-mails and letters letting me know that you like to visit my house and spend a little advent time with me every day. I have written daily advent letters for several years, but this is the first time I use a blog, and also photos to illustrate my writing. Your feedback means alot to me :-), and is a huge inspiration to keep on this tradition. I have made alot of new friends through blogging, and I stay in contact with old ones. I keep you all close to my heart, and you shall also know that many of you are written down in my very special book of prayers.

December 21st

My last day at work before the holidays :-)

After work I went downtown for a few hours of shopping. The Christmas |market was brimming with life. I love this new tradition with the marked here in Trondheim. Stalls where they sell local food and crafts, a huge area where thay sell Christmas trees, and a new area with ice for skaters. So many kids and also a few adults were having fun there.

I couldn't stay there long though, as I had so many places to visit. The first one was the fish market where I bought three kilos of cut offs from fish. We will celebrate my husband's 50th birthday next week, and my 82 years old father in law has promised me to make his very special fish soup as a starter. So the cut off is now in the freezer waiting for my father in law to come.

I also bought the family gift of the year, the game Settlers. (I hope that none of my kids nor my husband read this before Christmas Eve,lol) So Settlers will be our pasttime activity this year, together with reading the new books, listening to new cds, watching new dvds :-) Mailbox was full again today, and at least one new book for me (from a penpal in England). But it is wrapped and I must be patient still a few days.