Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

December 21st. The Christmas Tree

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

I used to love these days leading up to Christmas (well, I still do). As a girl I pretended my bedroom to be Santa's workshop, and I made long lists of all I had to do before Christmas. I can feel this old bustle creeping up my legs, into my heart these days. The same good, old feeling. It is easy to recognise it as I meet it in Marta every day. She is busy these days, and she loves it.

Last night Terje and I sat at the diningtable making alist a mile long for the grocery shopping we need to do for the holidays, when Marta came up from the basement where her bedroom is. "Mamma, can you please help me to wrap this gift, it must be mailed to Sunniva tomorrow. I am so busy, there is now way I'll make it all before Christmas." Then she laid down on the floor, cozily, as she loves to do, starting to tell us all about her to do-list. In the middle of all this Ingrid arrived. Marius, Ingrid's boyfriend, has travelled home to spend the holidays with his parents, and in a day or two Ingrid will come home to stay here over the holidays. Marta is thrilled knowing that all her siblings will be home, surrounding her with their love, and now she and Ingrid started to talk about the preparations they will do together the coming days.

Terje and I listened, looking at each other, smiling, wrapping ourselves up in the heartwarming feeling that we are living, here, now. Then, suddenly we both realised - Christmas is here, SOON......... Will there be time enough for all when we have to do?

"Girls" Terje said, "shall we drive over to Granåsen to buy the Christmas tree?"

And off they went (and I could give myself an hour for writing)

The photos are from Sunday, Christmas trees at the Christmas market downtown.

Thanks for your name suggestions for my writing room. I am still seeking for the right name.......

December 20th. I simply love this time of the year

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 
I did it. While Terje and Marta continued with their baking yesterday, I sat down at my desk, in the small though very cozy room I call my office at home. To write.

 
It might end up being a book sometime, though not a published one I guess. This will be my very special memory book for my kids. "Four is my lucky number"

 
By the way, my home office needs a name. Any creative, cozy suggestions?

 
Photos from Friday, hands belonging to Marta, Ingrid and Marius.

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Are you ready for Christmas yet? On top of our to-do list now is to buy the Christmas tree.

December 19th. Dirty Sunday?

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

If you have read Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods for some time you will know that today, the last Sunday before Christmas, is traditionally called Dirty Sunday in Norway. Unlike many other places in the western world, Christmas is not here yet, we have no Christmas tree up, we haven't even bought ours yet, and though we have been baking, this year we have been very clever and not eaten any of the cookies.....yet. But Christmas is coming soon, very soon, and as the holidays, the holy days, are coming closer, we are getting more busy. To help (I wonder if it really was a help) the housewives getting all the preparations done, they were allowed to bake and clean and do all chores even on the last Sunday before Christmas. No resting, not even on a Sunday.

Here in The House in the Woods we are en route. Some baking will be done today, some cleaning, and I will start preparations for our traditional dinner on lille julaften (Little Christmas Eve). But I also plan a long walk with my camera, to capture the beauty of my day, the beauty of my life. Capture not only with my lenses, but also with my heart.

Advent this year has been a very good time for family and friends. Like Friday, two days ago. I took some time off work during lunchbreak to have lunch with two best friends, I did some Christmas shopping and had dinner in town with my two boys, Torgeir and Øystein while Terje was home baking with the girls. The House in the Woods is situated in the bottom of a small hill, and while driving down this hill on my way home, light was glowing warm and bright out of the windows of our home. I could see through the livingroom into the kitchen where Terje, Marta, Ingrid and Marius were busy with their baking................and as it is some times, in the glimpse of a few seconds a thousand thoughts passed through me. It all looked so cosy, a deep, deep love for the life I have been given, my husband, our children, our home, our everydays and the love between us..........

..........what have I done to deserve it all. How can I keep it all for days and weeks and years and generations to come.

There and then I wanted to sit right down and write a book. A romantic one, more like the House on the Prairie, to capture the life we life, here and now.

When I came in I took some photos of "Daddy's Little Helpers". Our princess of fun, Marta, couldn't resist. The second before I shot the photo she pressed her hand down on the left over baking flour, and fast, fast, fast raised the flourfilled hand up to her big sister's face to leave her lovemark. With my camera I cought the perfect smiles, don't you agree :-)

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About writing a book - at least I will sit down today to write a long entry in my diary about the lunch with my friends, about dinner and shopping with Torgeir and Øystein, about the wonderful smell of Christmas cooking in progress when I came home. About love and laughter filling my life.

Happy Dirty Sunday.

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By the way, Friday didn't finish with the baking. Late at night terje and I drove over to my parents for supper, with them and with my brother Børge who lives in Iceland.

Blessed day!

December 18th. The story behind the archangel

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

It didn't take very long yesterday till people started to email me about the story of the archangel on top of the northwestern tower of Nidaros Cathedral. First I got a message on facebook from Sjur, the churchwarden of the cathedral "This angel, with the face of Bob Dylan (Knocking on Heavens Door) was modelled by the artist as a tribute to Dylans participation against the war in Vietnam"

Then I got an email from Carol (her text is about the sculptures on the western wall of the cathedral, and then some interesting information about "my" archangel:

I couldn't resist doing a search for your angels name. I came up with a paragraph on a random blog with a link to wikipedia. The paragraph is below along with the link. Do you think it could be true?

 

Carol

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The two lower rows of sculpture, proposed by Professor Oluf Kolsrud in 1928, are based on the engraving by Jacob Maschius. Kolsrud was an historical adviser on the church's restoration, and prepared an iconography for the sculptures. His proposal to place statues on the "royal floor" – although without evidence of historical precedent – was approved in 1935. It was assumed that the medieval sculptures were based on living models, and to a large extent, this concept is applied to the new sculptures. Thus the sculpture of Bishop Sigurd borrowed features from the poet Aasmund Olavsson Vinje, and Kristofer Leirdal's statue of the Archangel Michael on the top of the northwest tower was based, according to the sculptor, on the face of Bob Dylan – inspired by Dylan's opposition to the Vietnam War.^[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nidaros_Cathedral_West_Front

Every Friday at 2pm we have a cup of coffee at work. Yesterday I told about my angel revelation while having coffee with my colleagues, and then most of them could tell me back that of course they knew this story, about Bob Dylan and the Vietnam War. And I was told more........Some years ago, when Dylan was in Trondheim for a concert, those responsible for the concert wanted to give Dylan a photo of the archangels face. A lot of effort was being made to make this and a beautiful, huge framed photo was handed Dylan when the concert was over.

You say you want to know what happened to the photo? Well, that's quite another story, and not mine to tell.......

December 17th. The angel on top of the cathedral tower

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 
Can you see the angel on top of the cathedral tower? I pass this angel every day. I always look up to see that he is there. I think it is the archangel Michael. But I am not sure.

 
I am reading a huge, and I mean really huge, book about Nidaros Cathedral written by Gunnar Danbolt. I've tried to find information about the angel on top of the tower. There must be information about him somewhere, I evern know I have heard stories......a story about the likeness in the angels face.......but did I find anything? Do I remember?

It must be my age.......or.......

Anyway, I continue to search for stories. I continue to look up every day when I pass the tower. I continue to live in the great belief that there are angels in my life!

December 16th. Dreaming of a White Christmas

Text and image Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

When Ingrid was born Terje and my father in law built this playhouse. When we moved to The House in the Woods almost 10 years ago, the playhouse moved with us.

The playhouse, or dukkestue as we say in Norwegian, has in many ways been my house, more than the girls'. Through my childhood I spent many hours dreaming of a tiny little house of my own. I am not sure if Ingrid and Marta have ever had the same dream. Though they have spent hours playing in the house, it is impossible to share the exact dream.

The playhouse stands in a corner of our garden. Sometimes children play there during the summer months. Mostly it is just standing there. For me a dream of a childhood, a reminder of the girl which still lives in me. One day I will paint the inner walls, do some renovating and decorating......making it my childhood dream.

When the kids were small we sometimes used to place a plate of hot rice porridge outside the playhouse on the night before Christmas. For the nisse, not Santa Claus, but the small Norwegian goblins called nisser. The next morning the porridge was always eaten. All of it. There are many years since we fed the nisser now. I wonder if they are still alive.....somewhere.

I do hope that they have not left The House in the Woods for ever.

December 15th. Filling the cake tins

Text and image Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

I was met by a fantastic smell when I came home from work yesterday.

Marta had started filling the Christmas cake tins, Terje had dinner ready, table set, candles lit. The leftovers he served tasted like a feast for kings and queens.

December 14th. Capture the Light

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

The days are short and I miss the sun. It snowed all week-end, on Sunday I wasn't even out of doors once.

Then during lunch break yesterday when I looked out of the windows, I saw that the low midday sun was playing hide and seek on the old medieval walls. I drank my coffee in a hasted and almost ran out to play along.

When you live close to the Arctic Circle, when your winter is dark and cold, you soon enough learn hom inportant daylight is. How essential the sun is.

And you learn, well I learn, to take care of the sunny moments.

To capture the light.

 

December 13th. Santa Lucia five years ago......

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

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It is Santa Lucia Day today. Marta baked the special lussekatter yesterday and we had some after dinner, all kids at home and also my brother Børge from Iceland. I also brought a bunch for work this morning, and could serve lussekatter to our Monday morning meeting.

A friend is celebrating her birthday tonight so I have no time for a blogpost, but thought you might like the one from five years ago, with a 9 year old Marta :-)

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13th of December is Santa Lucia Day, a day we celebrate every year in our family. The tradition is that the youngest girl in the family shall wake the others, walking from bedroom till bedroom singing a special Santa Lucia song and serving saffron buns. Marta is the youngest in our family, and with a little help from me :-) she is the first one up, and dressed in a white robe, with candles in her hair, she serves her home made yellow saffron buns to the rest of the family - well, actually nowadays she wakes Ingrid with the song, but we all eat together around the huge table in the diningroom - saffron buns and hot chocolate. A wonderful tradition which we never skip. I was up early today starting the meal. I always prefere Santa Lucia Day to come during the week-end, and I know some people celebrate it during the week- end right before the 13th, but we always prefere the exact day. So still tired from sleep I made cocoa and warmed the buns we had made a few days ago.

Øystein was still asleep while we other ate though - never easy to wake all kids at the same time :-) And after breakfast I had to run to the bus. I had meetings all day at work, and my staff also  dressed like Lucia and served saffon buns to the diocese board during their meeting today.

I know that Santa Lucia Day is not well known to all my readers, so I have gathered a little information from the net:

http://www.serve.com/shea/germusa/lucia.htm

And here is a Norwegian page:

http://www.katolsk.no/biografi/lucia.htm

Our American Girl Doll is now dressed in her Santa Lucia outfit and will be part of the family for the holidays.

December 12th. 3rd Sunday of Advent....or Booktalk on a Sunday 38

Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland

The third candle in the advent wreath is burning. We've had breakfast and Terje is making himself ready for cross country skiing. It is snowing heavily outside, and I mean - REALLY HEAVILY. I had planned a trip downtown for some snow photographing, but have decided to give myself a cosy day with my books instead. And may be there will be some garden photographing later.

Advent/Christmas and books, I could start a new blog only about that.

I keep on reading from my pile of books to be read, today I am going to finish A Girl Made of Dust by Natalie Abi-Ezzi, set in Lebanon in the 1980ies, but in between and "all the time", there are all those Christmas books, from Advent and Christmases past and present.

There is Charles Dickens and his Christmas Carol, one chapter each Sunday during Advent, the fifth chapter on Christmas Eve. There is The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder. I don't know how many times I've read it aloud, one chapter each day from December 1st. For the past few years I have been the only "listener"........

Do you ever lose yourself in books? I mean completly go wild, or go to another place? I'm sure you have. I do it again and again, I can only mention The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S.Lewis, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Or Harry Potter, lovely, amazing Harry Potter......yes, I will spend time with you again this Christmas.

The old classics are for me wonderful holiday reading. Last year I dived into Dickens, not only Christmas Carol and a lovely old, old hardcover sent me by a penpal many years ago - Dicken's Christmas Stories, with A Christmas Carol of course, but also The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth, but Oliver Twist in preparations for my visit to Iceland and nephew Agust performing in the play in Iceland's National Theater (you find it in a blog post from January), and then I continued with Dickens throughout the winter and spring.

This Christmas I plan to start a completely reread of Jane Austen. I almost can't wait to start...........I do have so many cozy reading hours ahead.......

 
Then there is Dylan Thomas and A Child's Christmas in Wales, Evelyn Sharps collection of old Christmas stories for children, The Child's Christmas, there is a pile of seasonal books sent my though a long life from penpals and blog readers, like The Quiet Little Woman by Louisa May Alcott, The Christmas Shoes by Donna VanLiere and Giovanni's Light by Phyllis Theroux. There is Maeve Bincy and Rosamunde Pilcher, there are chidren's stories for all ages by Astrid Lindgren, H.C.Andersen and Alf Prøyssen. Vanity Fair by W.M Thackeray was sent me for Christmas a few years ago by a penpal and I still haven't read it, I am looking forward to reread Gladys Taber (from a blog reader) and almost on top of my list I have Adventures of David Grayson, also a book by a dear blog reader.

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Will Advent and Christmas be long enough...................

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But before closing here, to make myself a mug of tea and read the third chapter in A Christmas Carol, I have a challeng for you:

What is your favorite reading for the coming Christmas season?

Photos: I took the photos of my beloved Nidaros cathedral yesterday morning on my way to the Christmas market with Ingrid.

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By the way, while reading I will be listening to Christmas with Dickens by The Seven Dial Band. A cd I ordered from Past Times in England many, many years ago.