Courtesy of the US Embassy in Oslo: Americans try Norwegian Christmas foods for the first time.
Full disclosure: I’ve only “enjoyed” two of these things: Lutefisk and aquavit.
Even at my age, there are still worlds to conquer.
Tag Archives: Christmas
Yule be sorry
Photo credit: Tj Holowaychuk@tjholowaychuk
What a weird season this is turning out to be. I enjoy what I’m doing for a living, but working part-time, from home, turns out to leave me less free time than I had when I was an upstanding cog in the system.
I usually put up my Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving, and I start writing my Christmas letter around the same time. Now it’s the 5th of December, and I’ve done nothing! Nothing!
I have failed as a Norwegian. Christmas is one of the things we do. My ancestors are ashamed of me.
But tonight I’ve put in six hours already, and I have a little latitude on the deadline, and I’ve made a personal commitment to starting the Christmas letter this evening.
Heaven knows I have a lot to write about. Mostly about my new semi-career, the schedule for which is the reason the letter will be late.
My Christmas letter is kind of an annual epic production. First I write it in English, then I translate it to Norwegian, for the recipients over there. Those letters have to go out first, because of postal transit time.
And there was something else, wasn’t there? … Oh yeah, the tree.
Well, the actual old tradition was to decorate and light it on Christmas eve. I may end up being traditional this year.
Merry Christmas
Sissel with “In the Bleak Midwinter.” It’s pretty cold in these parts.
How Excessive the Incarnation
I’m not in favor of spending a lot to finance fantasies of Christmas perfection, nor do I endorse the sort of gluttony and the psychological overload of “special moments” that makes us feel as though Christmas is a celebratory marathon to recover from rather than savor. Yet, the basic impulse toward excess is not wrongheaded. In fact, given the theological meaning of Christmas, it’s altogether fitting in its way.
R.R. Reno says the incarnation of God is most expensive, most exorbitant gift ever given. That doesn’t totally justify our modern day Christmas excesses, but it does give them a little room. The problem is less with our excessive celebration and more with how we view our excesses in comparison to God’s.
God does not give himself to us by assembling the good things of life into a giant banquet. Instead, we get Jesus.
A Carol Symphony
Here’s an orchestral work that isn’t played constantly every Christmas season but could easily fit in any holiday concert program. Victor Hely-Hutchinson wrote “A Carol Symphony” in 1927, which was about the mid-point of his life. It hit all the right notes of his London audience at the time, but since then other compositions have crowded it off of our traditional Christmas playlists.
I hadn’t heard of it until today. Have you?
Beautifully Human Christmas Special
I don’t know if Dallas Jenkins can pull together a TV series on Jesus’s life, but this episode on the shepherds who witnessed the angelic announcement and the new-born king sheltering in a stable is marvelous. I had teary eyes by the end. But, of course, it’s one of my favorite stories.
I recommend watching it and letting us know what you think.
Why Does Halifax Send Boston a Christmas Tree Every Year?
“On the morning of Thursday, Dec. 6, 1917, the captain and crew of a French munitions ship called Mont-Blanc were eager to reach the safety of Halifax Harbour, and with good reason,” writes John U. Bacon for The Boston Globe. The ship was chock-full of explosives for use against Germany. But before it could reach the harbour, you might say mistakes were made.
The ship exploded at in dock at a force estimated to be one-fifth that of the first atomic bomb.
About two hours after the explosion, Governor Samuel W. McCall sent a telegram to the mayor of Halifax: “Understand your city in danger from explosion and conflagration. Reports only fragmentary. Massachusetts ready to go the limit in rendering every assistance you may be in need of. Wire me immediately.”
“Christmas Day” by Holst
“Christmas Day – a choral fantasy on old carols” by Gustav Holst, performed by Ensemble Corund und Solisten of Zürich, Switzerland.
‘I Am So Glad Each Christmas Eve’
Tonight, another classic Norwegian Christmas hymn. This one, “Jeg Er Så Glad Hver Julekveld,” is probably the best-known original Norwegian carol. Which isn’t saying much; you’ve probably never heard it. But it’s famous to us. I had to memorize it phonetically when I was a kid, for a Christmas program in church.
The title means, “I Am So Glad Each Christmas Eve,” and that’s what the translation is called, if you can find it. The singer (clearly a child) is saying how much he loves Christmas Eve, and the reasons are all about Jesus. How the star shone forth and Jesus was born, and how Jesus lives in Heaven to hear our prayers. How his mother trims the Christmas tree and fills the room with light, explaining that Jesus came as a Light to enlighten the world.
It should really be done by a children’s choir, but I couldn’t find a video like that. So this one will have to do.
Glade Jul. Merry Christmas.
Believing in Christmas
Kirsten Powers describes her history with Christmas and how the Lord brought her to himself in Christianity Today.
Ironically, after all of this, Christmas lost its luster for me. The rank materialism became too much to bear, and the Christmas season morphed from being a time I savored into something I tried to survive each year. Santa Claus, Christmas trees, the holiday jingles—they all felt like pagan oppression. When people complained about a war on Christmas I often smirked and thought to myself, Where do I sign up? Honestly: When a sale at Crate & Barrel gets entangled with the birth of Jesus Christ, something has gone horribly wrong.
She doesn’t leave it there. It’s a marvelous story.
Also out of New York City today, columnist Nicholas Kristof asks pastor Tim Keller whether one can be a Christian while rejecting the virgin birth and resurrection. Keller says many good things, and on this question the main point is that Christ Jesus was not a good teacher whose ideas could be taken out of the context of his life. He came to give us life through his resurrection. It was on this basis that he taught what he did.