Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Advent is here

@brittarnhild

First Sunday in Advent. The first candle is lit. And I am back to blogging after a short break.

My theme for this year´s advent blogging will be sharing through Christmas letters and Christmas cards. Many of you have already sent me your address, and I have your cards ready.....almost

As the theme contains not only cards and letters but also "sharing", I am asking you a favour this advent - do you have something to share from your Christmas correspondence? A heirloom tale from long ago, a story from today? Please share in the comment section or send me an email. May be I can use some of the tales in the blog.

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I am in charge of the website for the bishops and diocese board here in Nidaros. I took these photos this morning, hoping to make one for the front page on the website. And yes, I made it :-)

You find the webpage here.

 

Remember your medicine

@brittarnhild

The low winter sun creates magic, and some time after lunch I left my untidy work desk, took my cell phone and walked out just to breath some minutes of day light. This dark period of the year can be a challenge for the body. We have electricity of course, I burn candles at breakfast, all through the afternoon and into the night, we always have the light we need. But there is something about the sun light which we are unable to create without the sun.

Winter Solstice is still three weeks away......

 

The Advent Calendar

@brittarnhild

Many of you have asked me if I plan to do an Advent Calendar blog this year. After many years of doing one here on Britt-Arnhild´s´House in the Woods, I moved it over to Caffee Avec last year, and posted every day through advent an image of one nativity, and a tale about the country where I had bought it. You will find all the post by going here, and scroll down (it is several pages, so when you are at the bottom of the site you will need to press the arrow.

As I wrote a few days ago, this advent I will post about the art of writing Christmas cards, and Christmas letters. In between there will be more nativities, there will be Christmas preparations, there will be travels......and probably a lot more.

In my post on November 19th I asked you to leave a comment of you want to be on my Christmas letters/cards list. What I forgot to mention is that I will of course need your address as well, to be able to send the letter/card. So if you want to be on that list, please email me at

[email protected]

One month today

@brittarnhild

As I write this it is exactly one month till we are seated around the Christmas table, eating our traditional Christmas Eve meal. We will have a full table this year, and a full house for the season. Terje and I are busy making plans, loving every single minute of it.

This afternoon we are making list. We do it over a cup of coffee while watching the afternoon news. And I have my lap filled with my knitting.

Multi tasking.
True Mrs Santa multi tasking.
Just like I love it.

 

New eyes for November

@brittarnhild

I have never liked November much. For years I have actually dreaded it. December is darker, but December has the light of Christmas and never feels that dark. This year I am kind of falling in love with November. No snow yet, will only a handful snowflakes. But sun and frost and for a very few hours in the middle of each day, the light transform my life into magic. The magic of November.

Marta and her boyfriend Martin came with us today for a walk along the fjord. The weather was not as sunny as last Sunday, but still the light made it all special. A dance on rays of November light.

 

I don´t mind a few more snow free weeks, but a lot of Norwgians are getting impatient now. Will we get snow for Christmas.

I have a plan. The coming weeks I will try to take some time off, minutes, half an hour, an hour, off in the middle of the day, to go out and search for light. This means I will have to work later in the afternoons, but then it is dark anyway.

 

November light

@brittarnhild

I had a long list of "house-fun" tings to do, but when I sat eating my lunch, I knew I had forgot the most important: hiking in the November light.

It was already half past one and I knew the daylight would not last very long, but I ate my food in a hurry, found my winter coat and boots, and soon I was out in the middle of the fairytale.

 

Today I found some tiny paths where I´ve never walked before. Up and down, not quite knowing where they would lead me. 

It was never hard to find the way back to the main paths though.

November light. Filled with magic.

 

….to blog about

@brittarnhild

We live south of the arctic circle, so the sun never completly disappear here as is does further north, but as our house and garden is situated in a north-faced slope, there are several weeks during the deepest winter when the direct sun doesn´t reach us. Time of darkness is soon here, but for a short time today the garden was bathed in the low, cold winter sun.

As we head into the dark months, I do as I do every year at this time, I search for other types of light, other types of warmth. My knitting needles are busy, in the kitchen I create healthy comfort meals and our meals are never done in a hurry, page after page is filled in my journal, new colour combinations find their way into my art scrapbook..

......I write letters......

.....and I try to find things to blog about.

 

Working full time

@brittarnhild

Working full time during the winter season means that I leave home in the full darkness of the morning and when I return home hours later it is again dark. It is still only November 20th, so this will get worse, a lot worse. Sometimes I take a break at work, looking out the window, the sun, the bare trees in the cathedral park, the dry. frozen fallen leaves. If I am lucky I have to time to wrap myself in my winter coat, grab my camera and run out for a few minutes. The blue garden is alive only in my dreams, and during weekends.

Today I was able to leave work a bit early though, and the first thing I did when I got home was to do a garden walk. With my camera.

Some things are more essential than others.
Enjoying nature through the seasons is among them.

 

Can you see, even my garden is preparing for advent, wearing purple.

 

Preparing for Advent

@brittarnhild

December 1st is not far away, which means my advent blogging is coming close. I started "advent blogging" long before blogging was invented, or at least long before I knew about blogging. My first blog post appeared in January 2005, but the oldest "blogg post" saved on my computer is from November 29th 2003 when I wrote this email to a list of family and friends:

I have been looking forward to this week-end for a
long time. It is the week-end to start advent
preparations, and over the years this has become more
and more important for me. It is still almost four
weeks till Christmas, and this period will be the
period for preparations; preparations to open my mind
for the wonder which happened 2000 years ago, and
happens again every year, the Creator became man and
came to this world. The advent colour is purple/lilac,
and our decorations the coming weeks will mostly have
this colour, though all through our house more and
more Christmas decorations will be seen. Tomorrow is
the first Sunday of advent, and already tonight a star
will be hung in our livingroom window, and advents
wreaths with four candles will be set all through the
house. Tomorrow the first candle will be lit, then one
more for each of the coming four Sundays.

I have the advent calendars ready for the girls, one
basket for each with 24 packets in. It was a great
pleasure last night to wrap them all, as it has been a
pleasure the last weeks to use my creativity to gather
gifts for them. It is an aim for me that the gifts
shall not be expensive "use and throw away" gifts, but
small tokens they will like and use. The huge working
table here in my studio is filled with boxes of what I
call "my very own advent calendar". A huge box with
all my Christmas books, a smaller one with the CDs, a
basket with my snowman collection, another with my
angels, several colourful baskets with small and
bigger quilts in progress, my snowglobe collection is
here, and also my home made Christmas stockings. And
not to forget my nativity scenes. I have four scenes
so far, and they are all very special to me. One is
from Haiti, bought when I visited the country in 1998.
It is a coconut with an opening for the door, and the
figurines are made out of clay and painted in bright
colours. I also want to mention our newest scene,
bought in Provence this summer, traditional Provencal
santons.

.....well, just like a child (and at Christmastime it
is important that we all behave like children) I
cannot wait till Monday and December 1st. The first
Christmas cd, Christmas in Vienna III with Placido
Domingo, Charles Aznavour and our own Sissel Kyrkjebø

is on the cd-player, my Debbie Mumm The Magic of Santa
mug is filled with spiced tea and as soon as this
letter is finished I have Mary Engelbreit's Christmas
Companion is waiting to be enjoyed.

Happy advent, and remember to take time to enjoy this
very special period of the year.

 

For thfree years I sent out a daily email through December, but then in 2006 I moved it all over to my blog, and since then Advent for me has been a special blog tradition. I know that many of you originally found my blog because of my advent blogging, and every year in October and November I get emails from my advent blog readers where they tell me how much they look forward to my advent blogging.

 

 

This obliges me, and the last couple of weeks I have been thinking about what to blog about through advent this year. And I have found the theme.........this year it will be about Christmas cards and Christmas letters. I have some rabbits up in my sleeve and can´t wait to reveal them :-)

 

 

I am not a good one for waiting, so I´ll start already today writing the first Christmas letters, but more blogging about it will wait till December 1st.

Write me a comment if you want to be put on my Christmas letter list.

 

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The photos are from my Blue Garden Letters period.....I might start that again when spring comes.

 

A Sweet Tooth

@brittarnhild

Are you ready for a Belgian chocolate gallore :-)