I Remember Our Old-Fashioned Christmas

Christmas may be over for this year, but it will never be over in my memory. I remember many Christmas celebrations of my youth but the years we lived on our mountain property in Norway are holding a special place. Our house was built around 1860 and the walls were made of solid logs. Our living room boasted the original logs in their aged beauty. On the evening of December 23rd I brought in our 7ft. Christmas tree of a Norwegian Spruce. We had real candles on it and weren’t even afraid of a fire. Other Christmas decorations were of real thin glass and some were quite old. On the morning of Christmas Eve neighbours used to come by for a chat. We had always coffee going in the house.   At around 4pm we’d be heading down to the main village for church. The church was beautifully decorated and the old wooden pews did not offer enough seating for everyone. So usually extra chairs were put up for the service. A choir were singing the old Christmas songs. My favorite was “Deilig er jorden” which actually is known as a psalm in North America. After the service we drove home into our own little village where we now had our delicious Christmas supper. The house was full of wonderful smells, some from the kitchen and others from our spruce tree and the candles. After supper we would light the candles on the tree and turn off all electric lights. Our tree was the most beautiful in the world. Looking out of the window we could see the outlines of the mountains shimmering in the dark with their silvery reflections off snow-covered peaks. Not a sound would be disturbing the peace. The night would be clear with millions of glittering stars, and if we were real lucky we would have a show of the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights. We had no TV  and never missed it either. Before we would go to bed, we liked to take a walk through the village. It was the most peaceful view I ever saw….light was shining out of every window casting reflections in the snow. It was a walk through the real Winter-Wonder-Land. Have a Happy New Year!