Presents are also brought by the small gnomes called ‘Nisse’. December in Norway, sometimes small gifts are given on julekake recipe day of December leading up to Christmas. These are known as Adventsgave or Kalendergave.
There is a similar tradition in Denmark. The gifts are sometimes used together with a chocolate Advent calendar! As in Finland, a sheaf of wheat is often left out for the birds to eat over Christmas. Also a type of rice porridge is sometimes left for the ‘Nisse’ who is believed to guard the farm animals. In some parts of Norway, children like to go carol singing.
Often children will dress up as characters from the Christmas Story, such as the Shepherds and Wise Men, and go singing from house to house in their local neighborhood. Sometimes they carry with paper stars on them. Another tradition in parts of Norway is that families light a candle every night from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day. Christmas wasn’t celebrated in Norway until about 1000 or 1100, when Christianity first came to the area. Before this people celebrated jul or jòl in the middle of winter. It was a celebration of the harvest gone and a way of looking forward to the spring. Maybe the most famous custom about Christmas in Norway is the big Christmas Tree that Norway gives to the UK every year.
The tree is given as a present to say ‘thank you’ for the help that the people of the UK gave to Norway during World War II. The tree stands in Trafalgar Square in the middle of London and often thousands of people come to watch when the lights are turned on. A traditional Norwegian Christmas Tree decoration are small paper baskets called ‘Julekurver’ which made in the shape of a heart. It’s said that the writer Hans Christian Andersen might have invented them in the 1860s! Merry Christmas is ‘God Jul’ or ‘Gledelig Jul’. In North-Sami, spoken in northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, it’s ‘Buorit Juovllat’.
Merry Christmas in lots more languages. Many different types of cakes and biscuits are eaten over the Christmas period in Norway. One of the most popular is a special bread called ‘Julekake’ that has raisins, candied peel and cardamom in it. Here’s a recipe for Norwegian Hole Cake. Like in Sweden, the 1958 Disney special “From All of Us to All of You” is shown on the TV in the afternoon on Christmas Eve.
The words were written in 1946 by Alf Prøysen. The tune is a traditional Norwegian folk tune. It tells the story of some mice getting ready for Christmas and the Mother and Father mice warning their children to stay away from mouse traps! It became popular very quickly and is now as popular as ever in Norway. However this was a hoax by a Norwegian photographer called Ivar Kalleberg.
Most people thought this was quite fun and that Alf Prøysen would have liked the joke! Here are the words of the Musevisa in an English translation, by Ivar Kalleberg and Kenneth Tillson and used with the kind permission of Elin Prøysen, the daughter of Alf Prøysen. Christmas event, so you can try singing along! If we avoid the mouse trap, we will have naught to fear. We’ll all be celebrating, at Christmas time this year.
A Merry Christmas season is good for me and you. Mother Mouse is cleaning, each ceiling and each wall. She wants a home that’s cosy, when Yuletide snowflakes will fall. A grubby home at Christmas, would be a great disgrace. So young ones dance a Polka, their tails sweep out the place.
And finally the evening, the youngsters all await. They know they’ll have permission to stay up very late. A toe-less boot is spruced up with nails that they have found. And then some flimsy cobwebs which they can drape around. Father Mouse now tells them that they should form a ring.