Norwegians celebrate Christmas
I was seven years old when
somebody told me why we
celebrate Christmas. It was
Mrs. Dahle. my elementary
school teacher, who read about
the birth of Jesus Christ from the
Holy Gospel.
"Jesus is the son of God," she
said "He was born m a stable on
Christmas Eve so that he could
repent for all the pagans, adulter
ers and sodomites who populate
the Earth.”
We didn’t know what adulterers
and sodomites were, but we under
stood that they must be something
bad. You see. Mrs. Dahle’s uni
verse divided itself neatly into two
categories the good and the bad.
Capitalism was good. Communism
was bad. Norwegians were good.
Immigrants were bad. Christians
were good. Muslims, Hindus, Jews
and everybody else were bad
She could teach us this,
because in Norway we don't sep
arate church and state. And Mrs.
Dahle saw it as her mission to
impregnate our minds with good.
Christian, traditional values.
She tried very hard, but I'm
afraid she wasn't very successful
with me. You see, my father was
an ardent atheist, and he'd decid
ed that there would be no mention
of any deity in our home. That’s
why I hadn't heard the name Jesus
Christ before Mrs. Dahle uttered it.
“Religion is the opium of the
people,” my father used to say,
and I think he'd read that in a book
by Karl Marx.
When my father said that we
wouldn't celebrate Christmas, my
mother immedtatety protested. She
wasn’t particularly religious, but
she was endeared to every kind of
tradition.
Traditions are good," she said,
“because they keep the family
together."
Whenever my mother and father
disagreed on something, my moth
er would always get it her way. But
MamisMeland
she was wise enough *et my
father have the last wor . so that
it would seem as if he had tri
umphed
"Look here, dear," my mother
said as she showed my father a
history book. "You see, Christmas
isn’t realK a religious holiday. The
Vikings celebrated Yule at this time
of the ye long before they were
converter to Christendom."
"Why vou’re absolutely right."
my tathi-*i said. “So there’s no rea
son for us not to celebrate the hol
iday
In tact, my mother was nght The
mid December celebration in
Scandinavia goes back hundreds
of years before the Vikings sub
stituted God for Thor and Odin In
ancient time they celebrated win
ter solstice, when the sun returned
and the days became longer And
believe me, if you'd ever lived
through a Scandinavian winter,
you’d celebrate that too.
Thus, with religion out of the
way, we could celebrate Chnstmas
in my family. And oh, did we cel
ebrate!
My mother filled the house with
candles and Christmas decora
tions. There were no angels or sta
bles, of course, but plenty of
wreaths, mistletoe, incense, and
Santa Claus dolls
And then there was the food.
Following the Norwegian tradition,
my mother baked seven types of
cakes, including my favorite, the
gingerbread men (it was before the
era of political correctness, and
besides, my mother didn't have
cookie cotters to make gingerbread
women).
On Dec 24, which is the day we
celebrate in Norway, my family
gathered around the table at noon
to eat rice porridge. Before the
meal, my mother would put an
almond into the porridge kettle and
dish it out in equal portions. Who
ever got the almond in his porridge
would wm a marzipan formed as a
pig, another Norwegian Christmas
tradition. Nobody was supposed
to know where the almond would
land, but I suspect my mother
knew it. because every year a new
person would win the marzipan
pig And my mother never got the
almond in her dish
Then we would go down to the
garden and hang up a bundle of
wheat in the pear tree There's an
old superstition in Norway that il
you don't put out a bundle of wheat
as food for the birds on Christmas
Eve, your family will be struck by
bad luck I believe it’s true,
because one /ear we forgot to put
out the wheat, and on Christmas
morning we found out that mice
had overturned the cookie |ar and
eaten all the gingerbread men.
For Christmas Eve my mother
followed the family tradition of serv
ing reindeer steak with lingonber
ry jam. Russian peas, and boiled
potatos Other (amities eat ribs or
cod. but my family ongna*y comes
from Northern Norway, where most
people eat reindeer for Chnstmas
My brother used to sing "Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer" while
we ate, but my mother didn't like
it. she thought it was morbid and
asked him to be silent.
After the Christmas dinner, we
went out and put a dish of rice por
ridge on the doorsteps for the
“nisse." A "nisse" is a kind of troll
who, according to popular tradi
tion, lives under the house and
Turn to CHRISTMAS, Page I SB
Holiday season inspires reflections on death
The meaning of the holidays
changed after I saw death for
the first time. He couldn’t have
been more than ?U. Laying on the
ground, 1rrr ' with his motor
bike stil be tv, ms legs, the bus
tire was cy a lew feet away from
his hear I was in another bus, anoth
er worl<i. passing by the scene that
seemed somehow like a |oke. No
punch line.
As the bus I was in drove by. I
looked out the window to see the boy alone in the
street. It was dark, but I could see a small puddle ot
blood creep (rom his head
The scream of his motorbike's horn was the only
sound outside. The silence inside was broken only by
the gasps of the other passengers who sat next to
me.
That wasn't the first bit of violence I had seen in my
life, but it was my first contact with death
In my short 28 years. I've seen stabbings in Philadel
phia. shootings in Idaho, a rape in Japan and that
fateful accident in Taiwan.
Whether if s the accidental or the intentional, death
creeps its way back into our lives with unending ease.
It's the piece ol chewed gum that we cant gel off our
shoe or that cut that just won't heal.
And death is back again.
In late November, a very good friend of mine lost
her baby. The child never saw the light of day because
it died in the womb.
Hearing about the death brought the bus crash back
all over again. Actually. I remember that crash every
year about this time. Ifs just that the baby’s death
brought the memory back a Ittle sooner this year. You
see. the first thing that hit me when I saw the dead
boy was how his parents would have to go through
that first holiday without him.
I wonder how my friend will get through the same.
After that year, like ail other years. I went home for
Christmas. I'd meet with family, carefully open the
presents so the wrapping paper wouldn't rip and smile
Edward Klopfensteln
over my Discman or Time*. The tra
dition |ust seemed like a hollow rut.
Why go through all this crap, I
thought, when it's all tor nothing any
way. The end result lor sinners and
saints alike is all the same: a hteless
corpse
In my personal quest lor an answer
to death, I thought about Christmas
That may seem like a strange place
to think about such an intense tope,
but il you scan any statistics on sui
cides. you'll see those numbers peak on Christmas
Day.
The holiday represents both the highest high and
the lowest low tor people who can't let go of loneli
ness. So. it seemed like a good place to think about
life and what it's all about.
Christmas (or whatever you want to call it — every
society has their own special day and name) isn't the
gifts or the tree or all the food mom packs into your
stomach. That's the trappings of our artificial soci
ety and what the folks in high-rise New York dreamed
for us. That is the he.
Pull away from that pabtum and you’ll find a com
mon thread weaving through the world's holidays that
humbly returns our eyes again to humanity. From
Hanukkah to Japanese moon viewing, that one day.
that one moment, gives us a chance to realize that
this life can mean more than cheap junk bought on
a last-minute whim.
Holidays can focus our realization that the veil hid
ing death from He is thin indeed. It can make us reded
on what we’ve really done with our lives.
In my mental travels. I found that life is short. But.
as long as we are living, we should rejoice for the mir
acle of every breathe we breath, if for nothing else.
This is how I got through my contact with death.
I only hope my friend can find something similar
this holiday season
And move on.
— Edward Klopfenstein
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