Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

December 15th. Where do you have your focus?

@brittarnhild

Out in the garden today. A dried and frozen clematis flower, a little boy practicing cross country skiing on his new skis.

I was again reminded on how to focus.

December 14th. What are your reading traditions for Advent?

@brittarnhild

Last year during Advent I spent a week in London, partly work, partly measure. One day I stumbled across a Charles Dickens exhibition. Pure Joy! The picture above is one of the 6000 first copies printed of A Christmas Carol and a little text box told that this particular copy was sent to Willian Charles Macready as a gift from Dickens himself.

A Christmas Carol is a book I read during Advent every year and have done so for a long time. Dickens wrote it in a London where poverty, especially among children, was a huge challenge. Today 150 years later, one whole think that the world has become a better place. In many ways it has, of course, but still, poverty, also in the western world, especially among children, is a challenge none of us should be allowed to walk past.

Here is a photo I shot at the exhibition:

 

I will continue to read A Christmas Carol every year in December.
What reading traditions do you have at this time of the year?

 

December 13th. Santa Lucia Day

@brittarnhild

It still feels strange to have my Santa Maria morning coffee all by myself. A day filled with so many memories of smiling, singing children, sweet saffron buns, lussekatter, and hot chocolate. After dinner Terje and I will have coffee together and I will eat another lussekatt, meanwhile I start working on a Santa Lucia YouTube-video:

 

 

December 12th

@brittarnhild

With this picture from 2005 I am sharing another one of my old Advent letters, also this one an email from 2003, December 12th.

 

Marta and her 6 years old cousin Mathilde are finally

in bed, but it is not easy for them to get to sleep,

they both look so much forward to tomorrow morning. It

is then St. Lucia's Day, and they will be up early to

serve us "lussekatter" - sweet Lucia rolls baked with

yeast and safran to make them yellow. Here is what one

of my book saya about St. Lucia's Day:

 

In the forth century St. Lucia was killed for her

faith in Jesus. Legend says that after her death she

became a bright star in the sky. Swedish (and now also

Norwegian) children celebrate her fest day on 13th of

December. The youngest daughter of each family dresses

in a white gown with a blood red sash and wears a

crown of evergreens decorated with candles. She wakes

her parents and serves them with coffee (we use hot

chocolate) and special cakes for breakfast.

 

We have celebrated this feast for about 15 years, and

are always looking forward to it.

 

It snowed during whole last night, the snow ploughs

had a busy morning. In Norway nothing stops because of

snow, we just warm up our viking blood and go on :-)

Traffic took longer time though, especially home from

work..... so I had hardly time to eat dinner before my

sister in law and her two small kids came for coffee.

Lovely to be together, tasting some of the Christmas

cookies, and playing with the kids. After my sil and

her 2 years old Benjamin left, I, Marta and Mathilde

made the "lussekatter". And now when they are in bed I

must make myself busy to prepare the dresses and find

the special baskets for the bread for tomorrow

morning. I took a picture of the lussekatter, and will

take one of the girls tomorrow, and see if I can post

them next week. Must also fill up my advent basket. I

have only one more snowman left in my collectuon now,

and also only one angel made by my artist friend. Have

other angels though, and still books, magazines and

cds to fill in the basket.

December 11th. Mindfulness

@brittarnhild

I have left the bus and am walking over to the Archbishop´s Palace where I have my office. It is still early morning and as usual I have Harry Potter and Stephen Fry in my years. As I walk I pass the cathedral, and suddenly I have to stop, turn of the sound of the audio book and just look. The sight I see every day, the sight which changes every day. The cathedral. My cathedral.

I continue into the Archbishop´s courtyard, the sight have the same beauty and a word is forming in my mind - mindfulness. Yes, my mind is filling up with all this beauty, it is overflowing. Mindfulness, to be fully here and now.

I saw a new Christmas magazine the other day, with the title Mindfulness. I guess it sells like varme hveteboller, lukewarm sweet pastries, as we say in Norway. The weeks leading up to Christmas, the weeks of Advent, which are meant to be a quiet time of preparations, is becoming more and more busy, filled to the brim and beyond. Mindfulness. I am not going to buy the magazine, but I do want to live my life with a mindful soul. I do want to live every moment. I do want to carpe diem.

 

December 10th and a snow storm

@brittarnhild

We picked up our oldest grandson in kindergarten today and then the three of us went to our local church to watch a special play/performance written for advent. Two birds, both of them feeling lonely and a happy ending the two birds celebrating Christmas together. Very sweet, very touching. Afterwards we were served dinner, this special and very much traditional rice porridge, served with butter, suger, cinnamon and often raisins.

When we came out from the warm and very cozy atmosphere inside the church we were met by a heavy snow storm, making it quite hard to walk down to the parking lot where our car was parked.

Sure, it looks like we might have a white Christmas this year :-)

 

December 9th. The Twelve Days of Christmas

@brittarnhild

Many years ago I got this old The Twelve Days of Christmas book for Christmas. The book was printed in 1956, is hard covered, full coloured, with the text from the Christmas song and is absolutely lovely. I might be wrong, but I think this book came from you Terri.

A few years later I got another one, again as a gift, and then another, and another, and I realised I had a collection. 

When I started my Advent basket tradition I put one of the books in the basket every day, as long as they lasted. I have 10 now, all of them quite different. I love them all, and today I went over to amazon to look what they could offer, and ended up buying two more. Both of them real treasures. I will show them to you when they arrive, which might or might not be before Christmas.

 

By the way, one of the Twelve Days of Christmas Books I have explained the meaning behind the song. A stunning tale which I will share with you another day.

 

December 8th. An old advent letter

@brittarnhild

In December 2003I started my Advent "blogging". Well, it was before blogging actually, or rather before I had heard about it. What I did was to write an Advent letter every night, sending it out by email to friends all over the world. Below is my letter from December 8th 2003.

 

Every night when I write this daily letter, I say to

myself - tomorrow I will have more time and write a

more proper letter. Then every night it becomes late

without any time at all for writing during the day.

And today is just like the other days. It is now

almost 11pm, and these are the first minutes I am

sitting down during the whole day.....almost!

 

I was up early, and had the quiet house by myself for

an hour before Marta and then Terje joined me. After

breakfast the girls and Terje walked over to Granåsen

ski arena to watch The World Championship in Ski-Jump

and Nordic Combined. We are lucky to live so close,

just 15-20 minutes of walking. I walked over to the

post office, and mailed about 20 Christmas letters and

a few packets. It is so good to have started the

mailing, I always have a loooong list of letters to

write and gifts to wrap and send.

 

When I came home I started baking. In Norway it is an

old tradition to have at least 7 different homemade

cookies for Christmas, and I made two this morning,

and my husband and Marta made the third tonight. I

made krumkake, and something we call rice and

chocolate cookies (risboller) Oh, what a treat to sit

down when I was finished, with a mug of coffee and a

few mismade cookies.....there are always some which

needs to be eaten at once, which are not perfect

enough for the tinboxes :-)

 

The sportfans came back, we had lunch and wrote some

more letters, and then went downtown for Christmas

shopping. It is so nice outdoors now, even downtown

the ground was covered in white, virgin snow, and

after yesterday's snowstorm the sun was shining. We

managed to do our whole shopping list, (have more

lists though for later days) and then went to watch

Ingrid play a handball match. Again her team won, and

again we parents were totally exhausted after our

cheering.

 

Ingrid brought a couple of friends home after the

match, and we had taco here at home. 8 around the

table....I love it when the table is filled. The first

advent light in the wreath is now burnt down, a new

one will be there for tomorrow.

 

Tonight I have been helping at Ingrid's school, where

they had the annual Christmas ball for the students.

Alot of fun, alot of the most elegant kids.....and

these are the same kids we see everyday in jeans and

sweathers,lol

 

No time for Christmas reading or Christmas crafting

today, but a wonderful, busy day anyway.....and of

course, tomorrow there will be another day.....And

though it is late now I still might manage some

quilting. Marta is in bed, the three oldest are out

with friends (Ingrid is sleeping over with her best

friend) and Terje and I will watch some handball on

the telly before going to bed.

 

Britt Arnhild

 

December 7th. Christmas Stockings

@brittarnhild

Our youngest grandson, Milian, was born in February and will celebrate his first Christmas in a few weeks. Of course I have made him his very own Christmas stocking. I talk about this one, and other stockings in my latest YouTube-episode, and even though I still talk in Norwegian in my YouTube-videos, I have an English section, about 5+ minutes, in this one. You have to go almost to the end of the video to get to the English part, but make sure you don't skip the beginning, with my mother playing Sibelius :-)

Here is the video:

 

 

December 6th and the birds get their Christmas treats early

@brittarnhild

Still almost three weeks till Christmas and usually we don't hang the julenek until lillejulaften, Little Christmas Eve which is on the 23rd. That is also the day we decorate the Christmas tree and the House for the festive season. But it has started to snow, the yellowhammers came this morning looking for the julenek, so now it is hung, for them and for all other birds.

Some years ago I wrote about feeding the birds and one of you readers commented that you had given the sunflowers seeds you gave the birds the name St. Frances Seeds. I wrote a little tale about that, in Norwegian and has posted it in my Norwegian advent blog today. You find it here (and might be able to use google translate).