Have yourself a merry little Christmas

(I heard the Norwegian singer Kurt Nilsen perform this Christmas song tonight--one of my all-time favorites. There is a melancholy feel to the song--beautiful and poignant. It seemed to me to be a wartime song, perhaps from WWII, so I checked its history on Wikipedia. Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane wrote the song. The song was not written as a wartime song but was rather introduced and sung by Judy Garland in the musical 'Meet Me in St. Louis' in 1944. Garland's recorded version of the song was popular among the troops at that time).  

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Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the Yuletide gay
From now on our troubles will be miles away

Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of Yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more

Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now

Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now

My favorite Christmas films

Getting ready for Christmas…..I just thought I’d make a list of my favorite Christmas films. They are the films I try to watch each year because they remind me of some nice times together with my family when I was a child, and because they really do get me into the Christmas spirit. Some of them are poignant reminders of a simpler time, some are funny takes on tried-and-true Christmas themes, but all of them are gentle reminders in their own way of what Christmas really is about—love from above and here on earth, and gratitude for the many blessings in our lives.

1.       It’s A Wonderful Life (from 1946, a wonderful story about the true meaning of life and how our lives impact on others, with the wonderful pairing of James Stewart and Donna Reed) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/

2.       Miracle on 34^th Street (the original from 1947—a warm and wonderful classic movie about Santa Claus and if he exists, with a great performance by Natalie Wood, a child at the time) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039628/

3.       White Christmas (from 1954, one of my mother’s favorite Christmas movies, and one of mine too)  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047673/

4.       Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (from 1964 with the beautiful song ‘Silver and Gold’ sung by Burl Ives. Rudolph saves Christmas) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058536/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMlqn_Hjyi8

5.       A Charlie Brown Christmas (from 1965 with the great jazz music by the late Vince Guaraldi—so many wonderful songs. Charlie Brown’s attempt to de-commercialize Christmas) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059026/

6.       How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original from 1966; the Grinch tries to prevent Christmas from coming, and he fails. His little dog steals the film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060345/

7.       Scrooge (from 1970, a musical with Albert Finney, based on the book ‘A Christmas Carol’, with the song ‘Happiness’ that will make you cry) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066344/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k5wsEHVy-4

8.       The Snowman (from 1982, a very nice British classic about a little boy and a snowman that comes to life) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084701/ with the lovely song 'Walking in the Air' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubeVUnGQOIk

9.       National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (from 1989 with Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo; some priceless funny scenes) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097958/

10.   Home Alone (from 1990, another modern little classic that gets to you. Could never understand how the family could leave their little boy behind—but that’s the fun!) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099785/

11.   The Nightmare Before Christmas (a modern little classic from 1993 with some poignant songs; Jack Skellington in Halloween Town decides to ‘do’ Christmas because he is bored with Halloween, with some highly unusual results to say the least) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107688/

Christmas time is here

(These are the lyrics to the song 'Christmas time is here' from 'A Charlie Brown Christmas', the film that first aired on TV in 1965. It is a lovely song, and you can hear it on YouTube. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPG3zSgm_Qo)


Christmas time is here
Happiness and cheer
Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of the year

Snowflakes in the air
Carols everywhere
Olden times and ancient rhymes
Of love and dreams to share

Sleigh bells in the air
Beauty everywhere
Yuletide by the fireside
And joyful memories there

Christmas time is here
We'll be drawing near
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year...

Season of Good Cheer

And now begins the holiday season—the season of good cheer—the stores are already decorating for Christmas, it has already snowed once, and Thanksgiving is just around the corner, ready to usher us into the month of December. I have been celebrating Thanksgiving in Oslo since I moved here in 1989. The first year I was here Trond and I scoured the city looking for a large turkey, and finally found one in a supermarket called Coop OBS. I think I paid around 70 dollars at that time for the turkey; prices have come down considerably since then. Turkey is now much more popular than ever before and can often be served at Christmastime instead of the traditional baked pork ribs and meat cakes. But in 1989 it was a novelty and many of our friends enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at our house. I would make turkey with bread and onion stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce (it wasn’t easy years ago to find fresh cranberries either), corn bread or muffins, pumpkin pie and mincemeat pie. What I would often do on my annual trips to New York was to stock up on the things I needed for Thanksgiving—canned pumpkin, ground corn flour, dried mincemeat and fresh cranberries that I usually froze until I needed them. It’s now fairly easy to find pumpkins; I bake the shell and scrape out the soft pumpkin in order to make pies and bread. In later years I have begun to make pumpkin soup and it has become a favorite. Sometimes my mother or friends would send me what I needed for Thanksgiving by regular mail and that was always nice. I remember that a former colleague from Sloan-Kettering who was doing a guest sabbatical at my hospital institute in 1991 smuggled a turkey and fresh cranberries in his luggage on a return trip to Oslo after a short visit to the USA. The cranberries got smashed and ended up staining his clothing, but we did enjoy the turkey and it made for a great story afterwards. That was of course pre-9/11; nowadays you would not be caught dead doing anything like this—you would never get your luggage through security. We have celebrated Thanksgiving several times with colleagues (mostly American) and that has been fun too—nice to get together with other Americans and celebrate what really is the most ‘American’ of USA holidays. And many of them knew exactly where to go in Oslo to get this or that item that was needed for the Thanksgiving meal.

My stepdaughter Caroline really likes pumpkin pie and I enjoy making it for her. She has also learned to make it herself. I love it too and am always glad when there is pie left over after Thanksgiving. Finding evaporated milk to mix into the pie filling was not easy years ago but it is easier now. It was always a challenge to find what I needed for Thanksgiving but I have always managed to do so each year. It has also been a challenge at times to actually prepare the meal. I baked a Thanksgiving turkey for the first time in 1989 in an old electric oven that had once belonged to my husband’s parents. That was a huge mistake, because every time I opened the oven door to baste the turkey, the temperature would drop dramatically, and then the oven would take a long time to heat up again. Suffice it to say that our company showed up at around 6pm but the turkey wasn’t ready until around 10pm. I learned from that experience!

I usually prepare food for Thanksgiving and my husband takes care of food for Christmas. We usually have traditional Norwegian food for Christmas and I look forward to it each year—pork ribs, meat cakes, sour white cabbage, sweet red cabbage, potatoes, and of course aquavit (it has to be expensive because that tastes best). He also makes salted sheep ribs (called pinnekjøtt) and serves them together with a turnip/carrot puree and potatoes (this meal is more typical of West Norway); it is excellent.

I look forward to Thanksgiving and then the Christmas season each year. I don’t think I would make it through the long gray dark winters without these holidays to look forward to. They get me through November and December; then there are the months of January and February to suffer through and then we’re on our way to spring. I am often reminded of my parents at the holidays—they also enjoyed preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas and it was a special time for us. After my father died, my mother continued to celebrate Christmas at her house and we often went there. She always enjoyed Christmas shopping and it was always fun to shop with her. She always overspent and we were always telling her not to do so. But she never listened and in truth this was fine because we knew this time of year meant a lot to her. We would watch the Christmas shows and films together—‘A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, It’s a Wonderful Life, Scrooge, A Christmas Carol, Home Alone’—and I still watch them. I’ve added to the list with ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ as well as ‘Dinner for One’ (Same Procedure as Last Year with Miss Sophie and her butler—very funny if you’ve never seen it).  I miss my parents especially at this time of year, but I know they are watching over me and us and sending their love and best wishes for happiness and good cheer. My parents never forgot the less fortunate at Christmas—there were always extra donations for the poor and the purchases of clothing and food for the different charity drives that were set up to help them. This is the way we were raised and it was a good way to be raised—to think of others and to want to help the less fortunate. And at Thanksgiving it is good to be reminded of all the blessings we in fact have. I know that reminder is good for me—to forget my complaints and small woes, because how could they possibly compare with what the poor and the starving have to face every day?  

Bots- og Bede-dag

Today I attended a morning service at the nearby Protestant church, Gamle Aker, the church from 1100 AD that I have written about before in this blog. The last Sunday in October in the Scandinavian Protestant church is called bots-og bede-dag, literally translated penance and prayer day. It is a day to take stock of one’s failings, to ask for forgiveness for them, and to promise to atone for one’s sins. The priest who led the service, who happened to be a woman, talked about how no one wants to focus on sin and personal failings anymore, but that despite this, the realities of sin and personal failings remain. She also encouraged folk to take charge of their own lives and not to rely on others to direct them or to entertain them. She talked about how we can sometimes close doors to others, to opportunities, to love, to many good things, and instead choose to live in passivity and fear. In doing so, we will never see the open doors before us, that could perhaps lead us down new paths and to new ways of living.

I believe in synchronicity; the Encarta dictionary defines it as the coincidence of events that seem related, but are not obviously caused one by the other. This is relevant because the priest’s talk focused on ideas that have preoccupied me for much of my life the past half year--the desire to open new doors and follow new paths, about the fear related to changing one’s life, but also about the exhilaration of knowing that one wants to. But it is not enough to mean well or to want to. That is what the priest meant; she meant that we must act on our good intentions. We have a saying, at least I remember it from growing up—‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’. Another (less ominous) way of putting it is ‘if not now, when?’ When are we going to do those good things that we think of but never act on? When are we going to listen to our heart’s desire? When are we going to acknowledge the existence of our soul? The priest reminded us that we do not have a lot of time on this earth. We do not live forever. Our mortality is not a distant fact many thousands of years in the future. For some it is the fate they will face next year, for others many years from now. Nevertheless, death is the great equalizer. It is man’s fate. It is the ‘blight man was born for’, to cite Gerard Manley Hopkins. Another wise person said, ‘live each day as if it were your last’. It sounds perhaps depressing to say this, but it is not. It is a wise way to live but not an easy one. That level of awareness can make one sad as well as happy. We need the balance. Perhaps there has been too much focus on happiness at all costs with no discussion of the importance of sadness in our lives. The yin and the yang as Mara says.

Taking all of this into consideration, I know I cannot be happy with, nor was I ever happy with, a passive life. I do not confuse a passive life with a content or sedate or peaceful life. An active life, filled with choices acted upon, filled with the life and energy that comes from having made decisions about how to live one’s life, leads to peace and to contentment. But the periods of passivity, of anxiety, of angst about making the necessary changes, are also positive in their own way. Rollo May wrote about finding the meaning in human anxiety in his book, The Meaning of Anxiety. He was a psychiatrist, an author, an artist, an activist, and a family man, whose personal values and beliefs shone through in nearly everything he did. He lived a full life and I think I understand what that means now. He described different development stages, one of them being the creative stage, which he meant defined what it meant to be a genuine adult. He stayed true to his heart’s desires and he did not seem overly preoccupied with status or prestige. I believe these two things kill one’s desires and good intentions faster than anything else in both a work and life context. It is hard to stay true to oneself and at the same time be climbing the career ladder to satisfy the wishes of others around you. It is hard to stay true to oneself and to be networking with the ‘in-crowd’ that will ensure your rocket flight to the top, because you may have to do some things that go against your beliefs. What are you willing to give up, or compromise on? I guess we all compromise to some extent, but it becomes more problematic when we approach issues that test our ethics.

Penance and prayer day gives us a chance to look at our failings and our successes, as well as our passiveness and our activeness. It does not mean that we have to condemn ourselves, to walk around feeling guilty, to be unable to forgive ourselves. We cannot be perfect beings on this earth, but we can at least attempt to find the paths that will move us toward living a life that is in harmony with our heart’s desire. We will always be ‘in development’ and unfinished. The important thing is to actively make the journey and to make it a memorable one. 

Halloween time

October has come to an end, and I guess it is fitting that the last day of the month is also Halloween, because it somehow marks the transition from lightness to darkness in a distinct way, as well as marking the start of the holiday season. Halloween (American-style) has finally made it to Norway and taken off in a big way. Many of the ‘dollar’ stores here (like the store Nille) take in a lot of money at this time of year on costumes, candy, candles and the like. There is no problem anymore in finding a pumpkin to carve, and in fact when I went out to buy a small one today I actually got the last one at the store where I bought it. Many Norwegians think that Halloween is commercial and unnecessary, and perhaps they’re right. But there are just as many who enjoy it. And since very few of them really celebrate Julebukk anymore, they cannot really complain too much when the younger generations, who have grown up watching American horror films like Halloween and its sequels, or other such films, want to celebrate Halloween too in their own way. Julebukk is a Christmas tradition where children wear costumes and masks so as not to be recognized and visit friends and neighbors, giving gifts as well as receiving them. In all my years in Norway, I have not once seen children do this, at least not in Oslo. Perhaps they honor this tradition more out on the countryside, I don’t really know.

I have ‘celebrated’ Halloween here since I moved to Norway. In the early 1990s it was difficult to get a hold of a pumpkin, but somehow I always managed to find one at the last minute. After it served its ‘evil’ purpose, I used the pumpkin to make soup and pies, and roasted the seeds and gave them to a friend of mine who really likes them. When my stepdaughter was young she and I would carve a big pumpkin, place a candle in it, turn off all the lights, and wait for my husband to come home from work so that he would get the full impression of the evil smile. In the late 1990s, she decided that she wanted to have a Halloween party, so I helped her with the decorations and baked a pumpkin-shaped cake that we frosted in an orange color and on which we made a pumpkin face. She also decided that she wanted to have bobbing for apples as well, which led to a fairly well-soaked kitchen floor after the partiers were done. She and I tried bobbing for apples before her guests arrived; it was not easy and I don’t know why I ever had the impression that it was. She had gotten some of these ideas from books she had read and movies she had seen. The fun part was watching her friends show up in different costumes—some as witches, some as vampires and some as hoboes. One of the guys dressed up as a woman, and had she not told me that he was a guy, I would have thought he was a woman, that’s how well made-up he was. This was at the time when Halloween was just starting to take hold in Oslo and at that time it was mostly children who were interested in it. Now the adults have gotten involved, dressing up and partying much like we did years ago in the states. I was reminded earlier today of the witch’s hat I bought some years ago that I used to wear when I opened the door to greet the children that have sometimes knocked on our door for candy. Our cat did not like that hat at all, and would back away from me when I was wearing it. I guess it freaked her out for some reason.

I usually watch the Peanuts film ‘It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’ at some point around Halloween. It’s hard to believe this little masterpiece was shown on TV for the first time in 1966. It still wears well with age. These were some of the traditions I grew up with—sitting around with my family watching the Peanuts Halloween and Christmas films as well as other holiday films. My father always enjoyed watching Snoopy pretend to be the WWI flying ace battling the Red Baron; perhaps it reminded him of his own WWII experiences. Those were pleasant times with my family and in truth, watching TV together with people is what I prefer—it is something I almost never do when I am alone.

I think one of the things about not living in America anymore is that all the traditions and holidays that we celebrate as Americans take on extra meaning now that I live here. I need to honor them because they keep me grounded as an American. I celebrate Thanksgiving as well, and it is a holiday that my husband and stepdaughter as well as some friends have come to look forward to. I enjoy preparing for it, as I do for most holidays. Our house is truly Norwegian and American in the way it celebrates most holidays, and sharing American traditions with my stepdaughter as she was growing up has been a lot of fun for both of us.

Independence Day in America

In honor of America’s Independence Day, I am posting the lyrics to the beautiful song ‘America the Beautiful’ as a reminder of all that we have to be thankful for as Americans.


America the Beautiful
Words by Katharine Lee Bates,
Melody by Samuel Ward

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!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!

O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stem impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!

O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!

Norwegian Independence Day

May 17th is Norway’s Independence Day (Constitution Day), and the Norwegians celebrate it in style. It is an interesting day to observe and be a part of, especially if you are a tourist, because it is one of those days in Norway when nearly everyone you meet is happy and in a party frame of mind. There are huge crowds in the streets, with people turning out to watch the parade of schools and other organizations that march past the Royal Castle at the top of Karl Johan Street, where the King and Queen stand on the balcony with other family members and wave to the crowds and to the marchers. The high school students (‘russ’) usually round out the parade, dressed in their red or blue outfits and hats (the color is determined by the type of studies they pursue, e.g. blue means they have studied business). The parade is usually finished by midday/early afternoon. Later in the day, people gather for barbecues and parties and when the weather is nice you can hear the music from the different parties blaring out over the city because all the windows are open. We ate lunch out today at Martin’s Kro--der maten er go'-- (Martin’s inn/pub--where the food is good) in a town called Gjelleråsen after driving around the suburbs of Oslo for a while. The restaurant was packed with people.

Women and men alike dress in traditional costumes (bunads). Interest in buying and wearing them has resurged during the past ten years. My husband’s family gave me a bunad when I first moved here. It had belonged to my husband’s mother who passed on many years ago. I wore it at our marriage in 1991 and have used it since at formal parties, dinners and weddings. It is worth quite a lot of money together with the silver jewelry that accompanies it. I don’t use it as much now as I did earlier—no specific reason, just that perhaps the feeling of novelty has diminished somewhat with the passing years. I will wear it again, that is certain—there will be future occasions for that.

Fireworks are not really part of the Norwegian Independence Day celebrations, in contrast to America’s Independence Day celebrations. They have mostly always been a part of New Year’s Eve celebrations for as long as I have been here and before that. Fireworks displays aren’t organized by individual towns and cities. It is rather individual people who buy them and set them off. I used to love ushering in the New Year standing outdoors with a glass of champagne in one hand and a sparkler in the other, while my husband and his friends set off different fireworks. My stepdaughter had to have fireworks when she was younger and that was always fun. We don’t buy them anymore now that she is grown up, but we still like to go out and watch them fill the skies each New Year’s eve. But as is the case with so many other things, the numbers of accidents resulting from their use have increased and thus the laws are changing to forbid the purchase and use of personal fireworks.

The American Women’s Club in Oslo arranges a July 4th Independence Day celebration every year in Frogner Park. I went there one year with my husband and my American friend and her daughter. It was interesting but it did not compare to the celebrations and fireworks that I grew up with in Tarrytown NY. I am not sure what I expected really, but probably nothing could have lived up to my expectations or to my memories of childhood celebrations. Perhaps it felt artificial in some way—not the real thing. In any case, we have not celebrated it that way since.

I never thought much about what it meant to be an American until I lived abroad. I think most Americans, if they get the chance, should live abroad for a while. It opens your eyes to so many things and is a great learning experience. It also opens your eyes to how the USA is perceived in other parts of the world and believe me, that has not always been a pleasant experience. I will write more about that in future posts.