Happy Halloween

Thanksgiving quotes

Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.

--Theodore Roosevelt

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.

--Aesop

All that we behold is full of blessings.

--William Wordsworth

Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.

--William Arthur Ward

If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share.

--W. Clement Stone

Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.

--Oprah Winfrey

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.

--Henry David Thoreau

For each new morning with its light,

For rest and shelter of the night,

For health and food, for love and friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dear Lord; we beg but one boon more:

Peace in the hearts of all men living,

Peace in the whole world this Thanksgiving.

--Joseph Auslander

God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.

--Izaak Walton

Forever on Thanksgiving Day

The heart will find the pathway home.

--Wilbur D. Nesbit

Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.

--Native American Saying

Halloween 2015 in Oslo

Carved pumpkin, check. Flashing skulls with different colored lights hanging in the kitchen window, check. Candy for the kids, check. Halloween decorations here and there in the house, check. Each year at Halloween, I feel like Linus in Peanuts waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear. I wait for the kids in the neighborhood to ring the doorbell for candy. We actually got a few children tonight made up as zombies and witches, and that makes my Halloween. But some years there have been none. Nothing to do about it, except hope that next year will be better. I've written about Halloween before, about how I began to celebrate it here in Oslo and how much I look forward to it: http://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2011/10/before-and-after-pumpkin-shots.html.

Halloween is now widely-celebrated in Norway; most people seem to enjoy it but there are always those who are against it. The pettiness of a few does not destroy the spirit and enthusiasm of the many, thankfully. A number of stores sell costumes, wigs, hats, candy, candles and all sorts of Halloween decorations and accessories. Nille is one of those stores; it's right down the road from where we live. I can't tell you how many times I've been there to buy one or another Halloween item during this past week. The candle holders shown in the photos were purchased at Nille. A far cry from 1997 when I bought most of the items I needed for a Halloween party in New York on one of my visits. I had to plan well in advance to make that party happen, but it did and it was successful. The convenience of being able to buy what I need here now is something I am quite happy about. 

Wishing you all a Happy Halloween!

Nille and its Halloween displays

Zombie hand candle holder

Spider candle holder

Christmas in Oslo

The Norwegian Opera House

Downtown area near the waterfront

Oslo waterfront

Christmas tree at the University of Oslo

I've been taking a lot of photos lately, trying my hand at night photography. Believe me, it's not easy to get good night shots without a tripod. If you don't have your tripod with you, then you need to steady the camera on a solid surface, and sometimes that works out. Some of my night shots were satisfactory. I wanted to share them with you because I want you to see how the Norwegians deal with the intense darkness that descends upon their country in winter. The darkness envelopes you, there is no other way to describe it. It can be an uncomfortable feeling in the beginning of your stay here. So the lights go on in most buildings and they often stay on, even after work hours, creating a warming and comforting feeling when you look at them. 

We were at the Norwegian Opera House recently to see The Nutcracker, which has become an annual tradition for us. I liked the tree and the lighting, so I decided to come back and take some photos of the building and the waterfront. And then I was at the University of Oslo tonight to take photos of the newly-renovated Science Library, and I saw the Christmas tree and the lit buildings, and I had to snap them too. There is something magical about the lighting and the effect it creates inside of you. Thus, winter has its unique charm and beauty despite the darkness. When the snow comes, the darkness loses its intensity, so it is one reason to look forward to snow. 

Giving thanks

I have celebrated Thanksgiving each year since I moved to Norway, and each year I look forward to celebrating the holiday. I never really get tired of preparing food and inviting people to share it with us, although I must admit that at the end of Thanksgiving Day I’m pretty exhausted. This year was no exception. I normally invite family and/or friends to join us during the weekend after Thanksgiving, as we are at work on Thanksgiving Day. This year was different; I made Thanksgiving dinner today and invited family.

I am always nervous each year that something will go wrong; that feeling that I will suddenly become a completely inept hostess rears its head each year. But except for the first year I was here, things have mostly never gone wrong. That year was the year that the antique electric oven that my husband inherited from his parents didn’t tolerate being opened too often to baste the turkey (the temperature dropped dramatically each time the door was opened). Suffice it to say that it took about nine hours before the turkey was done. Our guests were patient though and they hung around, back in the days when people did hang around until 1 or 2 am (when we were younger and losing a good night’s sleep didn’t destroy the following five days in terms of sleep and lack of energy). We bought a new stove shortly after that. In the twenty-two years I’ve been here, the turkey has turned out dry on two occasions. This year the corn bread didn’t rise as high as it should have and I don’t know why, I couldn’t find cranberries in the supermarkets or in the small neighborhood markets to make sauce (I used tyttebær instead and that’s always a good substitute), and I almost couldn’t find a turkey. It seems as though eating turkey has caught on here at Christmastime, which means that turkeys will be available in mid-December. But as I explained to one supermarket manager—I’m American--I need a turkey now! But I finally did find one that was the right size after visits to a number of different supermarkets. It turned out to be a very good turkey, not dry at all.

Thanksgiving, for all its informality and joviality, is really a formal holiday, in the sense of giving thanks on a national scale. I can remember attending mass when we were children and singing ‘America the Beautiful’. The first stanza is particularly beautiful and memorable:

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

It’s good to be reminded that we ought to be grateful for all that is good in our lives. And maybe sometimes even for what may not be good in our lives at present—unhappiness, unfairness, losses, hurts. Because without the sadness that life deals out at times, we might not be able to appreciate the happiness when it appears. We need the contrast. 

Before and after pumpkin shots--Halloween in Oslo

Halloween was a distant memory for me for many years after I moved to Oslo. My first attempt to revive and celebrate the holiday was in 1997 when my stepdaughter Caroline decided she wanted to host a Halloween party for her friends, with bobbing for apples and costumes and all of the 'traditional' aspects. I made a cake in the shape of a pumpkin and frosted it with orange frosting and decorated it with black licorice. And of course I traipsed all over Oslo trying to find a pumpkin, and finally found one. But it was worth it because she and her friends enjoyed their party.

That was then. This is now. Now there is no problem finding a pumpkin; they come in all shapes and sizes. And Halloween is now celebrated here. And that makes the New Yorker in Oslo very happy. I have blinking skulls hanging in my kitchen window, and am crossing my fingers that we get some trick or treaters. While I know some Norwegians are not exactly thrilled with another 'American' cultural invasion, the majority of them seem to enjoy it, and if they have kids, they are busy shuttling them here and there to attend this or that party. Not so different than American parents. Me, I'm just a big kid when it comes to this kind of thing--I don't think I'll ever change. In that way, I'm like my mother. She looked forward to seeing the kids in their costumes every year, and to doling out candy to the trick or treaters. There's something about the holiday that is sufficiently pagan for me--despite the commercial aspects of it. I simply cannot get it out of my blood. So bring on the vampires, zombies, ghosts and witches! I'm looking forward to seeing them.

In the spirit of Halloween

During the weekend I happened to be up late and decided to see what was on television. I stumbled across the new horror series that has been racking up rave reviews in the USA—The Walking Dead. The first season is being shown late at night here in Norway on the cable station Fox Crime; I understand that six episodes comprise the first season, and that the second season premiered in the USA last night. I have only managed to see two episodes of the first season so far, but what I’ve seen is fairly convincing. This is a cut above your average horror series. The zombies are very realistic and the entire show has such a realistic feel to it that you could almost imagine such a thing happening—a virus wiping out huge segments of the population and then the dead coming back to life as flesh-eating zombies. The episode I watched last night was the final one of the first season—when the CDC in Atlanta self-destructs after the generators lose power due to lack of fuel, taking the one scientist who decides to stay and end his life there with it. But before it is destroyed, this scientist shows the group of survivors who travel together the 3-D brain scans of his wife before she died of the virus, and how the virus spread through her brain, killing her. It was interesting to see the ‘live’ brain scans—the neural circuits in the brain flashing and then the virus spreading through the brain, causing the circuits to stop firing. Then, after some hours, some light started to glow in his dead wife’s brain stem, but nowhere else in the brain, allowing her to rise again as a zombie, at which point he shot her through the brain. I have to ask myself—why at my age do I still enjoy being scared by this type of show? Why do I still watch this type of horror? I find myself being scared in the same way as I was when I was a teenager. I know none of it is real, that it probably could never happen quite in this way, although an apocalypse of some sort could of course occur. That was more than realistically portrayed in Corman McCarthy’s book The Road, which I found to be quite a harrowing read. For that reason, I did not watch the film based on the book and which starred Viggo Mortensen, mostly because it all seemed so hopeless and dark beyond words. Perhaps the difference between it and The Walking Dead is that there seems to be some hope in the latter, if only in that the survivors can in fact take out the zombies, who are slow-moving and easy to kill. But they are ugly and scary-looking and the show is definitely not for children or the faint-hearted. I found myself thinking of I Am Legend with Will Smith and The Omega Man with Charlton Heston as well, also films where viruses led to scenarios quite similar to those in The Walking Dead—survivors battling virus-infected monsters and vampires respectively. Both of these films are based on the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend, which is excellent.

Zombie and vampire movies continue to fascinate us, as is evidenced by how well most of them do at the box office. They scare us—and we seem to like being scared. Monsters scare us, the monsters of our childhood, the ones hiding in the closet or under the bed. The dark scares us, and it seems to be an instinctive response—we cannot see in the dark and that by itself leads to fear, because we are vulnerable in the dark. I remember that feeling as a child. What lies behind the door? What is in the closet? What is under my bed if I look down or if my foot sticks out from under the covers? What will get me if I am not protected? What if I look out the window and a monster stares back at me from the darkness? That is why the scenes of the monsters overrunning New York City in I Am Legend were terrifying. They were strong, vicious predators and nothing seemed to stop them. They hid indoors by day and came out at night. Imagine a society where that was the case—howling screeching monsters running amok in the night. 28 Days Later was another such film that created the same feelings; especially the one scene in the tunnel where the car with uninfected survivors won’t start and you can hear the infected mob bearing down upon them. Will they escape, and what happens if they don’t? We know the answer but we watch anyway to make sure they get away. Because some of them have to escape the horrible fate that awaits them—some of them have to live. We have to know that it is possible to survive, otherwise what is the point of watching?  

Halloween is soon upon us. Each year the USA (and now many European countries ironically enough) celebrates this strange holiday—a combination of pagan and Christian influences. Halloween is not originally an American holiday. The idea of Halloween with masks and costumes is in fact quite ancient, originating with the Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the end of summer (information culled from different websites). The Celts (who were spread out over much of Western Europe) believed that demons and ghosts of the dead returned to earth during harvest time (before the winter months) due to the fact that the gates between life and death were more ‘open’ at this time of year. These other-world visitors were dangerous because they could cause trouble with the harvest and food stores for the winter months, so it was necessary to appease them. The Celts thus wore costumes and masks during Samhain to ward off demons and ghosts, sacrificed animals and burned crops to their gods in bonfires built by their priests (the Druids) who could control the supernatural energy present at this time of year. We thus have Halloween in our blood, so to speak. Despite the Christian influences that eventually overtook Halloween, the original pagan celebration is a part of our heritage. The fear of the supernatural world, of demons, ghosts, vampires and monsters, is as old as time. Fire could protect, darkness was danger. We would prefer not to be visited by ghosts and demons; we would do what we could to prevent that. In our ‘civilized’ age, we don’t believe that ghosts, demons, vampires and monsters walk the earth, but the superstitious part of us is tenacious and not easy to get rid of no matter how ‘civilized’ we are. Perhaps that is one explanation for our fascination with the darkness, with the unknown, with monsters. As much as we like to pretend that we don’t get scared, the reality is something else again.

A New Yorker in Dublin

So many impressions of Ireland and of Dublin—here are a few. The Irish are an unpretentious folk, friendly, with a pleasant sense of humor. It actually felt 'familiar' to be there, because it reminded me of some of the residential areas around New York City--the Irish neighborhoods. Not surprising since the Irish who immigrated to the USA settled in and around the city. I felt as though I fit in with the culture and that didn’t surprise me either, because I grew up in the New York City area and because my mother was of Irish ancestry (as well as of English and Scottish ancestry). The people don’t seem to get too excited or stressed or angry. I cannot remember that we heard much yelling or cursing or that we saw angry people yelling or screaming at the world around them. There were a few beggars who sat in the streets hoping for some change. I ate Irish food each night—fish and chips, bangers and mash (pork sausages and mashed potatoes—delicious), and Irish stew. Didn’t get a chance to sample shepherd’s pie, but my mother used to make that and Irish stew as a matter of course especially during the cold winter months. So I knew what to expect and I wasn’t disappointed. And the beer was good. I am not a beer drinker, but I enjoyed the Guinness beer and the tour of the brewery that makes it.

We made our way to two interesting library exhibitions: the first was about the famous Irish poet William Butler Yeats (my favorite poet)--‘ The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats’ that took place at the National Library of Ireland http://www.nli.ie/en/udlist/current-exhibitions.aspx?article=adb6ce52-1f52-4a33-882c-685dedd0fb9d and http://www.nli.ie/yeats/ (virtual tour). It was a fascinating collection of his manuscripts, photo albums and books and told the story of his life in an effective and moving way. The second exhibition was The Book of Kells at Trinity College library, with a trip at the end of the tour to the second floor of the library to visit the Long Room—a fantastic room lined with marble busts of ancient philosophers, writers and medical scientists as well as with ancient books from floor to ceiling, of course off-limits to the public. The Book of Kells was fascinating—an amazing book put together by scribes and illustrators and holy men. I have a new appreciation for libraries and the incredible work that goes into creating these exhibitions. They do such a good job.

We also enjoyed the Temple Bar area in the evening with its many pubs with live music and dancing. We spent one evening at The Old Storehouse and enjoyed a good meal and live music—a duo—a young female violinist and a male guitarist. The woman sang and the two of them were terrific, performing traditional Irish folk songs as well as some American songs. Many of the singers in the different pubs seemed to have a fascination with Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen. I really enjoyed the Irish folk songs, e.g. Wild Rover comes to mind, a classic song that seemed to be a real crowd-pleaser; the public clapped and sang along as though they knew the song by heart, which they probably did.

Dubliners are not much different than other Western Europeans when it comes to walking on city sidewalks; there is only a halfhearted attempt at staying to one side of the sidewalk in an orderly fashion. Pedestrians spread out all over. You bump into them when you meet them. Everyone says excuse me and all that, but it would be easier to walk if there were ‘lanes’ like if we were driving cars on the highway. But it isn’t much better in Manhattan, except that people tend to be a bit more proactive in terms of moving to the right side of the sidewalk when they see folk coming. Dubliners also flock to cafes and outdoor restaurants to enjoy the lovely sunny weather when it arrives (sporadically), just like Oslo city dwellers. Of course there were a lot of tourists there now at this time of year, but a good number of them were Irish (we could hear the accent), in addition to the French and Italian visitors.

I will be posting some Dublin photos in upcoming posts. It is a lovely city with interesting storefronts and clever names for its many shops and pubs, as well as versatile architecture—very old or modern. Both seem to work. I’m glad I got to see the city, and I know already I will be going back.

Some wise words about mothers

·         A suburban mother's role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after.  ~Peter De Vries

·         The phrase "working mother" is redundant.  ~Jane Sellman

·         The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.  She never existed before.  The woman existed, but the mother, never.  A mother is something absolutely new.  ~Rajneesh

·         I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me.  They have clung to me all my life.  ~Abraham Lincoln

·         Sweater, n.:  garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.  ~Ambrose Bierce

·         Women's Liberation is just a lot of foolishness.  It's the men who are discriminated against.  They can't bear children.  And no one's likely to do anything about that.  ~Golda Meir

·         The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.  ~Honoré de Balzac

·         All women become like their mothers.  That is their tragedy.  No man does.  That's his.  ~Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895

·         Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime.
~William Shakespeare

·         When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts.  A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.  ~Sophia Loren,Women and Beauty

·         Women are aristocrats, and it is always the mother who makes us feel that we belong to the better sort.  ~John Lancaster Spalding

·         Motherhood has a very humanizing effect.  Everything gets reduced to essentials.  ~Meryl Streep

·         I love my mother as the trees love water and sunshine - she helps me grow, prosper, and reach great heights.  ~Terri Guillemets

·         [A] mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.  ~Emily Dickinson

·         A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.  ~Washington Irving

Happy Valentine's Day!

Christmas crèche in St.Olav's church

The Christmas season lingers, as was evident at the evening mass tonight at St. Olav’s Catholic Church. Even though the church year has moved on to the baptism of Jesus, the nativity scene, or crèche (see photo) as it’s called, is still on display to the right of the altar, and there were still a number of people after mass who lined up to walk by it and to touch the feet of baby Jesus. There are a lot of church parishioners who originally came from the Philippines; they seem to practice this particular custom. Perhaps other nationalities do as well. I lit two candles and said a prayer in front of the crèche. Seeing the life-size crèche always brings back memories of the crèche at Transfiguration Church in Tarrytown. It was a beautiful crèche with lovely life-size statues of Mary, Joseph, Jesus and the shepherds, and they were made even more beautiful after my sister and her friend scraped, sanded and repainted them. I was the documenter for the occasion, the picture-taker, with my trusty Kodak Instamatic camera. I got some nice photos of their handiwork.

The crèche is a peaceful display, a pastoral scene that is reminiscent of all the best things about childhood and Christmastime that I can remember—a stable, a starry sky, shepherds tending their sheep, angels on high, choirs of angels, and the placing of the child in a manger. Advent (from the Latin word adventus that means ‘coming’) is an important time in the church calendar, since it is a time of preparation for the birth of Christ. There is a lot of symbolism and ritual in the Church. We really prepared for Christmas in Catholic grade school (grades 1-8), starting already at the end of November. In art class we made a Judah tree, which is really the family tree of Jesus, but I don’t remember all the particulars, just that Mrs. Downey, our art teacher, had us use construction paper to design, cut out, and build a tree on which we placed the different ancestors of Jesus. We hung the tree in the classroom. An interesting way to learn biblical history, but I don’t remember much of it all these years later if that was the intent. We also spent time analyzing some of the famous paintings of the Annunciation (when Mary learned from the angel Gabriel that she was to be the mother of Jesus). We learned about the meaning of the Christmas tree; usually an evergreen tree, it is the symbol of the everlasting Christ. All of what we learned was related to the nativity. My parents also set up a small table-top crèche each year, and I continue that tradition. 

There is a bookstore in Akersgata in Oslo called Bok og Media, which is one of the oldest bookstores in Oslo and also a bookstore that has a large amount of Christian literature and media (http://bokogmedia.no/bm/main/bm9001/document/document11/Bok+%26+Media+Oslo.html). It has a special exhibition on the lower floor that they open to the public at Christmastime. You enter a long passageway, and as you enter, you are welcomed by the history of the Old Testament written on the wall leading up to the birth of Christ, as well as a map of the entire biblical area showing Galilee, Nazareth and Bethlehem, among others. As you proceed along the passageway, you will see that it is lined with crèches from countries all over the world. The last room before you exit is a room that is actually a life-size stable with a life-size crèche display. There are benches in front of it so that you can sit and reflect on the scene in front of you, while peaceful Christmas music plays softly in the background. When you emerge from the exhibition, you come out into an area of the bookstore that sells crèches and crèche figures, as well as Christmas music and books and other Christmas items. It is well-worth a trip to experience this exhibition. I have been there twice, and will definitely go back again. It is one of the many ‘hidden’ treasures of Oslo that someone needs to tell you about, otherwise you will never know they are there. The hidden treasures are some of the things I want to tell you, my readers, about in this blog. 

Welcome 2011!

Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year! I hope that 2011 will be a memorable year for all those things that bring joy and peace into our lives. And I wish that for the world as well. There has been too much conflict, too much death, too much war, and not enough peace and joy. 

I don't think I will miss 2010 even though there were some happy and memorable times. It was one of those years that stand apart from the others. 1985 was one of those years for me. They are challenging years, educational in their own way, but the process of learning comes at a cost. This year was incredibly frustrating, confusing and disappointing. I am not quite sure yet what I lost this year, but work problems took their toll and I think that has led to a widespread disillusion with the academic work world. That in and of itself would have been such a terrible thing for me to admit ten years ago, that I was disillusioned with my career and my work. Now it is not. But it is a tough thing to let go of--that intense love of work that I used to have--actually sad in many ways. A small grieving process in terms of letting go of the way I used to look at my work. I am not sure a new job would do the trick for me anymore, because I have become so skeptical about academia and the research world in general. However, my consulting work for the university library (Live, Kirsten and Liz) and for Liiv-MD (Bernadette), were the high points of this work year. Without them, I would surely have slid into a real depression in reaction to my work life. These jobs challenged me and got me thinking in new ways, and helped me to rediscover the joy of immersing myself in work and new projects. They also made me realize that I could leave academia and not look back. I wouldn't miss it very much. So that's a good realization, as well as knowing that I let something new into my life, in a non-traditional way. I broke my own mold and that was good for me.

The happy times were spent with family and friends, both here in Norway and in NY. Some of the highpoints of this year were seeing Pat Metheny in concert, Birgitte’s PhD defense and dinner afterwards, Caroline and Marius’ wedding, a relaxing summer vacation with Trond, and my trip to NY in August and seeing all my wonderful friends and family there. Those times are precious to me--treasures in my heart. Those times are what life is really all about, or what I want my life to be mostly about, and they are what I want more of as I get older. The sadness of this year was the passing of my colleague and friend Liza right before Christmas. Although we (her colleagues and friends) knew it could happen at any time since she was quite sick, when it did, it happened so fast and it made me realize again how unpredictable life is. We don't always have time to get our lives in order and to say goodbye. We cannot and should not take life for granted, and we should try to live each day in the best way possible. Not always easy to do or to remember, but well-worth thinking about. I say this mostly to remind myself to do that.

My one New Year’s resolution, if I was going to make one, would probably be to complain less about my workplace (if that is possible). I will certainly try. I imagine it will go like this though—I will want to complain, but will put a lid on it. Then I’ll go buy a punching bag to take out my frustrations, and who knows, that may help to get me into better physical shape. Or I’ll buy a dart board and hang it on the inside of my office door. Tossing a few darts at the board may help me feel better. In any case, I’m definitely going to try to deal with my workplace frustrations, and otherwise make the best of my life outside of work, which is most important.

For Auld Lang Syne, my friends

The end of this year and the beginning of a new year are upon us, and for the sake of old times I want to honor the memories of those who passed on recently and of those who left us years ago. You are not and never will be forgotten.

I am reminded of the movie When Harry Met Sally when a new year is right around the corner. The ending of the movie never fails to bring tears to my eyes, because when Harry finally realizes that he wants to be with Sally for the rest of his life, he is overwhelmed with a sense of urgency to get to her. How often does that happen to us? To know that feeling--that sense of urgency-- when you want to change your life or some part of it, and you’d like it to happen NOW. Except that sometimes God and the universe have other plans and the changes take much longer than you’d like. Confucius said “Every journey starts with a single step.” Our lives are our journeys if we want them to be. They can be long journeys if we’re lucky. We can choose to really live our lives, to be present to ourselves and for others, to step up to the plate, to take responsibility, to live now, to honor the past because it gave us our identity and to respect the future because it is an unknown entity. It’s scary to take the first step sometimes. It’s easier to stay put on the couch in front of the TV rather than to stand up and move out of the passivity that may have become part of our lives. I’ve written about that so many times this past year probably because it was an important realization for me. I got off my couch. I stopped watching TV in a mindless way, flipping from one channel to another in a vapid attempt to find something meaningful to watch. I stopped asking it to give meaning to my life. Making the journey means wanting to be active participants in our own lives. It means being aware and conscious and alive, and willing to be all those things. It’s important because if we don’t choose against passivity, we hand over the reins to others to control us and that is not an attractive option at all, at least to me. I have become preoccupied with this because it could happen that our freedoms could be taken away from us if we are not aware of their value to our lives. That thought scares me.

Writing this blog has helped me become an active participant in my own life. It has given me back my voice and shown me what is important to me for the rest of my life. It has opened new roads and ways into my heart and soul and mind. It has also helped me unearth long-buried memories that were waiting to be revealed. It is amazing what we store away and how much we forget. Writing unlocks many doors; some of them open into rooms of sadness, others open into rooms of light and hope. For old times’ sake, I honor all my memories and all of the people who helped make those memories together with me. Some of them are sad, others joyful, but they define me and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The ending of a year is always a bit poignant, but also hopeful because we move into a new year full of possibilities. I think I have finally understood (after many years) that there really are several possible outcomes to one specific event, not just one, and that we can often choose our response. Just that thought gives me a sense of exhilaration and freedom that I haven’t experienced in a while. I wish that sense of exhilaration and freedom for my friends, family, for those reading this blog, and for the world in general. I hope that 2011 brings hope to those who have not known hope for many years. I hope too that we find grace in our lives and in the things we do and that we realize that we do have a choice, a voice and the means at our disposal to make a difference in the world. 

Another favorite Christmas song

The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)

(Music and lyrics by Torme and Wells—1946)

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,

Jack Frost nipping at your nose,

Yuletide carols being sung by a choir,

And folks dressed up like Eskimos.

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe,

Help to make the season bright.

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow,

Will find it hard to sleep tonight.

They know that Santa's on his way;

He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh.

And every mother's child is going to spy,

To see if reindeer really know how to fly.

And so I'm offering this simple phrase,

To kids from one to ninety-two,

Although it’s been said many times, many ways,

Merry Christmas to you.

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This song reminds me of trips to New York City at Christmastime when we were children. It was not an annual tradition, but we did manage a few trips as a family as I remember. We would take the train from Tarrytown to Grand Central Station in Manhattan and then walk down 5^th Avenue to 37^th Street to see the storefront window at Lord &Taylor’s. It always had a spectacular Christmas display of one kind or another; folks lined up to walk past it with their children. It fascinated us as kids. We also would go and see the big Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, watch the skaters on the rink in front of the tree, and stop into St. Patrick’s Cathedral nearby to light a candle. What I also remember (also thanks to this song) are the street vendors who sold roasted chestnuts. My father would buy a bag of them and share them with us. I don’t remember that I liked them very much, but he did and that was fine. They always smelled so good, especially in the cold winter air and it was nice to hold the warm bag of chestnuts and feel the warmth through my gloves. But it was the sights and sounds of Manhattan at Christmastime that I remember too. And even as a young adult when I worked in Manhattan, the Christmas storefront displays, the glittering trees, the streetlights and Christmas lights hung up, Trump Tower with its big wreaths—all of it has stayed in my mind—glittering with the splendor of the season. 

Christmas music and memories

Listening to the classic songs and carols that I grew up with is one of the things I really love about the Christmas season. With each year that passes, they become more important to me, I guess because they link me to my past as well as to my present. The way I prepare for and celebrate Christmas is strongly influenced by my memories of growing up as well as by the different people I’ve come into contact with through the years who have shared their Christmas traditions and favorite songs with me. As with films having to do with Christmas, I have my favorite Christmas songs and albums. I’ve already posted the lyrics to some of my favorite songs in previous posts. Interestingly, the I-Tunes store is having a ’12 Days of Christmas’ promotion until January 6th—customers can download one free song per day until that time. I’ve decided that I am going to download twelve different Christmas songs and put together my own collection of songs.

One of the earliest Christmas albums I can remember listening to as a young child was called Christmas in Italy. It had a picture on the LP cover that completely fascinated me as a child. I have a tape recording of the album but would love to get a hold of the LP. I actually found a link to the album on Etsy that shows the cover: http://www.etsy.com/listing/60305492/christmas-in-italy-natale-in-italia, but the LP had already been sold. The cover shows two Italian children seated at a dining room table on which different foods, fruit, cake and wine had been laid out—an Italian Christmas feast. Their grandmother was serving them. The large high cake on the table appears to be a panettone, which is a fragrant-smelling and tasting Italian cake that my parents used to buy each year at Macy’s department store and that we ate for breakfast on Christmas Day. Panettones were always imported from Italy as far as I can remember; they appear to have come from many different regions in Italy. I still buy a panettone each year at Christmas. It’s not difficult to find them in Oslo. But back to the album—it is one of my favorites from childhood; the children talk in Italian in between the songs, and I always remember at some point that it sounded like they said my sister’s name, Renata. That somehow made it even more special.

Another favorite album is a collection of Christmas songs and carols sung by The Singers Unlimited. I got the LP as a gift from one of the doctors I used to work with at Memorial Sloan-Kettering back in the 1980s. It was one of his family’s favorites and he knew I would like it, so he bought it for me one Christmas. You can now buy it as a CD on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Singers-Unlimited/dp/B0000046J8. What makes it special is that the entire album (from 1972) was recorded ‘a capella’, without instruments, and The Singers Unlimited (a well-known jazz group) add their own special touch to all the songs they sing—jazzy vocals, interesting harmonies, lovely arrangements. Well-worth owning.

In later years I’ve acquired other collections of Christmas music that have joined the ranks of my favorites: A Windham Hill Christmas (II), Andrea Bocelli’s Christmas album (wonderful), A King’s College Christmas (British), Christmas with the Academy and Chorus of St. Martin in the Fields (British), and A Charlie Brown Christmas (lovely Christmas songs performed by the Vince Guaraldi trio). We also have a well-worn recording of the music by Tchaikovsky from The Nutcracker ballet. Attending the Nutcracker ballet each year is an annual Christmas tradition in our house that started in 1993 with a visit to the Metropolitan Ballet Theatre in Manhattan, and which we’ve kept up with in later years here in Oslo at The Norwegian Opera and Ballet.

I like celebrating Christmas in Europe; it lasts for more than just one day. You get a chance to enjoy the season and the holiday from the day before Christmas and for at least the week afterwards. The holiday is not over on December 26^th.  And that is how we grew up, since that is how my parents celebrated the holiday. Our Christmas tree stayed up until the Epiphany on January 6^th. Our tree now stays up even longer. The celebration of Christmas rounds out the year and prepares me for the coming of a new year. It is not about and never will be about materialism and commercialism for me. It is a celebration of the traditions, rituals, memories and spirit of the season and gift-giving is a part of that. But it is all the other things—the songs, films, preparation of food, going to church, and visiting family and friends, that make it what it is—a joyful, holy, special and sometimes sad time of year. I remember and miss those who are no longer with us—like my parents—but I know they are with me in spirit because I feel their presence during the holidays, and that is comforting. I understand the value and importance of traditions much more now that I am older; they keep you rooted to your past and give you a sense of identity in the present and that is a good thing. 

A beautiful Norwegian Christmas song--A Star is Shining Tonight

We sang this song tonight at the Christmas service at the nearby Protestant church—Iladalen Kirke. The Oslo Gospel Choir sings a nice version of it and you can find it here on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ilTwan9A8M.

EN STJERNE SKINNER I NATT     (Eivind Skeie / Tore Aas)

Nå er den hellige time

Vi står i stjerneskinn

Og hører klokkene kime

Nå ringes julen inn

Refr.:

Englene synger høyt i kor

Synger om fred på vår jord

Verden var aldri helt forlatt

En stjerne skinner i natt

En nyfødt kjærlighet sover

Nå er Guds himmel nær

Vår lange vandring er over

Stjernen har stanset her

Refr.: Englene synger .......

Se himlen ligger og hviler

På jordens gule strå

Vi står rundt krybben og smiler

For vi er fremme nå

Refr.: Englene synger .......

               

Her kan vi drømme om den fred

Som vi skal eie engang

For dette barn har himlen med

Og jorden fylles med sang

                          

Refr.: Englene synger.......

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(My best attempt at an English translation)

A STAR IS SHINING TONIGHT    (Eivind Skeie / Tore Aas)

The holy hour has now come
We stand in the light of stars

And listen to the clocks that chime
Ringing in Christmastime.

Refrain:
A choir of angels is loudly singing

Singing about peace on earth
The world was never completely forsaken

A star is shining tonight.

A newborn love is sleeping
God's heaven is now near
Our long journey is over
The star has stopped here.
      

Refrain: A choir of angels .......

See how heaven lies in rest

Upon the Earth's yellow hay

We stand around the manger and smile
Now we have found our way.
      

Refrain: A choir of angels .......
           
Here we can dream of the peace
That we will one day own
For this child has heaven with him
And the earth is filled with song
                      
Refrain: A choir of angels .......

Oh Christmas Tree

Despite the difficulties and sadness of this past year (especially during the past few weeks), I am looking forward to Christmas, perhaps in part because of the difficulties and sadness. There has to be something joyful to look forward to. I know that there is—my faith tells me to wait and be patient. My heart and soul want the peace and joy of this Christmas season, and if I let them in they will take root there. I’ve opened the doors and am letting in the light of Christmas.

Setting up our Christmas tree always helps make the house a peaceful haven. I have old and new Christmas ornaments and they all have their turns on the tree. Each ornament has a history—one was a gift from a friend, one I bought at a Christmas store in San Francisco, another is from my mother, another from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, and so forth. I remember how I got each one of them because it is my personal history dating back to when I was a teenager and started to buy or receive them. I collect Christmas tree ornaments and Christmas angels of all kinds. I love sitting in the dark with the lit and decorated Christmas tree in front of me. It’s peaceful in an indescribable way. I can remember back to when I was a child. I felt the same way then. I also remember being outdoors in the deep snow and finding a snow-laden evergreen tree, branches hanging down nearly to the ground. When they did that they created a kind of ‘cave’ to sit in—where I would sit and contemplate the peace around me. It never felt lonely to do that. I felt protected by the peace of the snow and the tree.

Each year my husband and I have the same conversation when we go to buy our tree—how big it should be and how high it should be, etc. He pushes somewhat for a smaller tree each year, whereas I still want a larger tree. We always end up with a tall medium-sized tree that has enough branch room to hang a fair amount of ornaments.  Maybe when we’re older we’ll go for a smaller tree, but for now, it’s nice with a larger one. It fills one area of our living room. My friend in upstate NY has a large tree this year as well; her husband dragged it from the car into the house commenting all the way that it was too big. I guess this must be a man thing—to comment on the size of the trees and to complain (a little bit) in general—or register some skepticism? But our tree is big this year—I used twenty-five feet of garland to decorate it (wrapping around the tree). That’s much more than I usually use.

Anyway, I am posting some photos of our tree and some ornaments. Enjoy! Have a joyful and peaceful Christmas! Take some time to sit with the tree……..

 

 

Christmas album by Kurt Nilsen

I'm guessing that this is the album on which the Norwegian singer Kurt Nilsen's NRK1 Christmas program tonight was based. If so, I can't wait to buy it. He has a wonderful voice--never misses a note. He performed a lot of Christmas classics, many of them American and of course that won my heart. He also performed the lovely song 'Walking in the Air' from the film The Snowman, which is a very touching little film.

According to YouTube, the album was released in mid-November. It includes the songs: The Christmas Song, Let It Snow, Baby It's Cold Outside, Himmel på jord, When You Wish Upon A Star, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, Winter Wonderland, Gje Meg Handa Di Venn, Walking In The Air, Nå Tennes Tusen Julelys, Stjernesludd, White Christmas and Auld Lang Syne. Stjernesludd is a Dum Dum Boys song--blew me away, especially with the children's choir as accompaniment (here is the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juajvkj71kc).

(I checked iTunes on January 2, 2011 and the album is now available for sale).

And one more great Christmas classic--Winter Wonderland

(How often we heard this song as children and loved it--my mother used to sing it along with us when we listened to it on the record player. I always remember the part about the snowman best--that he was Parson Brown--it stuck in my head, I don't know why. Amazing to think that it was written in 1934 by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith and that it is a Christmas classic all these years later. Kurt Nilsen sang this song tonight as well. He did such a great job tonight with his Christmas show on NRK1). 
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Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
In the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We're happy tonight,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

Gone away is the bluebird,
Here to stay is a new bird
He sings a love song,
As we go along,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown
He'll say: Are you married?
We'll say: No man,
But you can do the job
When you're in town.

Later on, we'll conspire,
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid,
The plans that we've made,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
And pretend that he's a circus clown
We'll have lots of fun with mister snowman,
Until the other kids knock him down.

When it snows, ain't it thrilling,
Though your nose gets a chilling
We'll frolic and play, the Eskimo way,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

Walking in a winter wonderland,
Walking in a winter wonderland.