A First Glimpse at a Norwegian Christmas, in September

How different is a Norwegian Christmas from what I'm used to? Somewhat surprisingly, I didn't have to wait until December to find out!

Tonight I was honoured to be invited to an annual friends & family Christmas dinner hosted by Anne, the mother of my friends Kathrine and Andreas.

I'm told this is traditionally held in December (funny that!) but I'm not sure why September was chosen this year. I didn't really ask!

Anne was born in England but has spent 40 years in Norway, so it was an interesting mix of English and Norwegian Christmas traditions.

Everyone was asked to speak in English which of course was good for me, but made me feel somewhat uncomfortable… however a few glasses of wine later and I felt right at home!

Dinner was great, turkey of course but with sweet potato, sweet-sour lingonberries and rice which was an interesting (and delicious!) twist on my normal Christmas dinners. But we still had Christmas pudding and mince pies with boozy cream for pudding!

I also heard some really weird cracker jokes, they were read out in Norwegian and English but I don't think the humour was lost in translation. They were just really bad jokes 🙂

All in all it was a lovely evening and I felt very welcome. It confirmed to me how settled I feel in Oslo and how friendly and welcoming everyone is here.

It also made me think about my own plans for Christmas this year. I'll be spending it with family in England, but I'd like to incorporate a Scandinavian twist. Perhaps some Norwegian Christmas food. I'm sure my mum would be up for that.

Oh! I nearly forgot, we also all got given presents, I got a santa mug and a big packet of cocoa, which was my “Norwegian Winter Preperation Kit”. I appreciated this more than most people realised, because a) I love cocoa and b) I am desperately short of mugs in my apartment!