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