Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

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]

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 letter, and a letter

@brittarnhild

I got a letter in the mail today. A handwritten letter, written on a very special stationary, designed by the letter writer. The first part of the letter was written in October 2013: Dear Britt Arnhild - Hello! As I write, you are on your Ethiopian adventure...... The next part was from March 2014 - Oh my goodness........Thank you for all your blogs, you are sunshine for every day. And your Lent photos and music are an added treat.......Then from May - Well, hello again....I do not know where the time goes. The last pages of the letter are from June 2nd 2014 - Hello!Yes, I do think of you often......

I am sitting here with a smile in my heart, I am so happy and thankful that my friend kept all the letters she started, put them together and in the end mailed them all to me. This way I could follow her through the year, and I know that she has been thinking of me, again, and again.

Too often I start letters which I never finish. When I pick them up a week or a month later I think they are out of date and throw them away, starting something new. I will never do that again. I will continue where I stopped, and eventually mail it all.

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I used to have a penpal, a dear friend. We lived in different countries, living different lives, but out letters tied us together. Over the years we met several times, and the letters continued to flow. Some periods it could be months between every letter, at other times just a few day. Some years ago a misunderstanding happened, and we don´t have contact any more. My heart still shed tears because of this, but there seem to be nothing I can do about it. But I do have all my friend´s letters, and I do have all our shared memories. Nobody can ever take them away from me.

I remember one summer I bought a very special notebook, and through our vacation, our weeks of travel, I filled page after page with words, postcards, tickets, small drawings and so on.....as a travel letter for my friend. I wonder if this notebook still excists....somewhere, in another country.....

The photos today are of the Blue Garden Letter #8 which I wrote for Susan.
It is not mailed yet, but inspired by my friend who worked on her letter for almost a year, it will be......eventually :-)

 

And thew Blue Garden Letter #9 goes to ARR.
ARR; will you please email me your address.

 

Duties are done, now is letter writing time.

@brittarnhild

With the smell of soap still filling the House in the Woods, the duties housefun before the holidays is all done, and it is time to start the real fun. My Christmas writing.

I have been a terrible letter writer this year. Wait till Christmas, I have told myself again and again, then I will bring out my stationary, my favorite pens and my creativity. Then I will write Christmas letters. We have sent out the traditional joint letter to family and friends here in Norway, but any English one is not made, and will not be made. Instead I plan to write by hand letters to a long list of oversea friends. Many of you I have met this year, some of you I have never met, will never meet, but still you have a very special place in my heart.

I used to be a serious Christmas card writer. Starting in November, I sent out loads of cards, letters and stuffed envelopes. Not so any more. Let us say that my advent blogging has taken over. I do miss the letter writing days though. Or rather, I miss receiving letters. We used to have a full mailbox every single day during December. And I loved coming home from work, bring in the mail and sit down with a mug og spiced advent tea to "meet" my friends.

These days there might be days with one or two cards in the mail box, or if I am lucky four or five. There might also be days with none.

There is still one tradition I keep though. Ever year I pick out one or a few favorite cards and glue them into a special book I have. I have already picked out this year´s........you see it above. It is from Fran in England, with linocuts made by her late father, many years ago.

Fran, thank you for making this card for me.

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After finishing cleaning yesterday, I started to bring out a few of our Christmas decorations. Among them an old cardboard folder where I keep grandma Olga´s Christmas card. From a time when sending Christmas card was a serious task of art.

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I plan to start my Christmas letter writing today. The letters which will be sent to the US, to England, The Netherlands, Italy, France, Canada, India, east of the sun, west of the moon. They will not reach their destination in time for Christmas, but as Christmas is a gem we keep in our heart all year, they will still arrive.....on time.

Duties are done.
Now is letter writing time.

 

Coincidence or??????

I have written before about having  pen pals from all over the world and what joy and blessings this give me. A couple of months ago I got a letter from Sally in South Dakota, a penpal of mine for about 11 years. She told me that she was coming to Norway with her sister and that they would be spending a day here in Trondheim. She hoped that they would be able to meet me and my family during the day. I wrote her back and gave her my cell phone number, and then last week I got a new letter from Sally. She wrote that she and her sister would be seeing the Nidaros Cathedral in the morning on the 22nd of July,and afterwards they were free to meet us.

My father in law came here last night to spend a week with us and we wanted to take him down town this morning to see the new exhibition in the Archbishop's Palace with the Norwegian crown regalias which opened a months ago. After breakfast I still hadn't heard from Sally, but we decided to go downtown, I always take my cell phone with me so she would be able to reach me anyway. And the Archbishops Palace is close to the cathedral, so I wouldn't be far away when or if Sally called.

Well, time passed and I heard nothing from Sally. We finished the exhibition and went to another museum in the same area, I with my phone in my hand waiting to hear from Sally any minute, wondering why she didn't call. And I looked around at the crowd of tourists wondering if Sally and her sister were somewhere. We finished the next museum, and on my way out I say the man selling tickets were talking with two ladies, and flipping through an old phone book of Trondheim. Well, I said to myself and prayed a short prayer; miracles do happen, what if these two ladies are "my ladies". There was a rack with postcards close to where they were, and I walked over pretending to look at the postcards, trying to see what the man was writing. On the yellow notepad my name was written, together with my very old phone number which have been out of work for years, and yes, the two ladies were Sally and her sister :-) Sally had lost my letter with my phone number and she had tried "everywhere" to get help to find me, and the only phone number this helpful man was able to give her didn't work!Yes, as I said, miraclas do happen, and one happened today to Sally and me.

My two ladies just left. We saw more of the town together, we had coffee outside the cahedral and we all went home here to the garden, my parents came over and we had a barbecue and coffee and ice cream for us all. And as a present Sally gave me the most wonderful summer quilt.

I've got mail!

I have written about my passion for letter writing before here in my blog. How I love to come home from work to find letters in my mailbox, letters from friends all over the world.

Two days ago I came home to find a letter from Yodith, a young deaf girl in Eritrea. Yodith has been a student at the deaf school in Keren in Eritrea, a friendship town of my hometown Trondheim, and is now a student in an ordinary school.

I have been to Eritrea and Keren twice, and have also been at the deaf school, but I met Yodith for the first time last year when she came to Trondheim for a short visit together with one of her teachers. Yodith is now struggling the hard life of being a disabled person in a poor country. She needs sign teachers to be able to learn, but  there are few, or almost none sign teachers in Eritrea. The job is so poorly paid, you are not able to survive on the salary. And Eritrea is a country with more than enough of other problems. War and droughts have been main problems for decades.But Yodith is strong and know what she wants with her life. Yodith will win her fight, and I feel blessed that she let me walk a few steps together with her.

It is so easy in everyday life to be content in your small and happy world. Letter writing has opened my horisont to other cultures, like e-mails and blogging also do. I love e-mails, I love blogging. But I will never leave "my first love" - writing letters........So, any potential penpals out there, I would love to hear from you.

Chest of creativity.

It is finally Friday and time for other things than working. I am very fond of my job and don't mind long work hours, but of course, nothing is like week-ends, holidays, free time :-) I always have a long list of things I want to do when I have some time off.

I have written about my old, inherited chest before. And here it is again. I gave it a new name today - my "chest of creativity". I have not started to fill it's inside, though I have alot of ideas of things to fill it with. But the top has become a perfect extra space in our livingroom where I can put books, knitting, stationary, letters, books, books and more books. I have my artbook collection upstairs in my office - which used to be Torgeir's room, and which he is using now when he is home from Australia on vacation. Now I have found a couple of my Monet books and brought them down to the top of the chest. Monet and artist with gardens is the upcoming theme on Armchairtravelling group on yahoo, a group I moderate. Monet has always been one of my favorite artists, and I will never forget the day, some years ago, we spent at Monet's garden in Giverny together with our French friends.

I got a letter from my French friend today. She has been in the Museé Marmottan in Paris where there are now many of Monet's paintings on display. She sent me a long letter telling me about her museum visit, and enclosed two postcards of Monet's paintings influenced by the Norwegian landscape. What a lovely letter! Thanks alot dear MN. Your letter is now placed on top of my chest of creativity, waiting for my reply.

I don't mind the outdoor snowstorm. It gives my wonderful time for indoor creativity.