Deck the Halls ...

Julebrus is a must for christmas around here!

What are the necessary ingredients for a good christmas celebration? I started thinking about this after listening to Ingvild's radio program interviewing passers by in London on their christmas traditions. For most people the ingredients are: family, food, gift giving, christmas decorations (which in our house is the tree, the creche and gnomes), christmas music, and snow. 

The girls arrived from England on December the 11th. I went to Gardermoen Airport to pick them up. Here they are coming out into the arrivals hall.  Audun arrived yesterday from Lillehammer. So I will be celebrating Christmas with my husband and 3 of my children. We skyped with Roland and Sharon on Christmas Eve, talked on the phone with Mother and the family (Tormod, Beren, Ilian and Joe) early Christmas morning (late night for them, they were in the middle of their celebrations), and a short skype with Adam this afternoon while we were playing clue after dinner. 

   

Here is the christmas tree on the day Husband brought it home, after selling trees for the cycle club, and a day later after we had a heavy snow. 

We had the traditional Christmas porridge on the 23rd before I had to go off to work. As you can see in the picture, the tree was not yet decorated. In Norway the tradition is to finish up with all the Christmas preparations by the evening of the 23rd. We then celebrate with rice porridge with an almond hidden in it. The person who gets the almond wins a marsipan pig (it was Husband this year). We have always had a whole family of marsipan pigs. The winner gets the mother pig and everyone else gets a little piglet. For the past few years Irene has usually been the one to create the pig family. This year she complained: "I don't feel any Christmas spirit!" "Christmas spirit comes from preparing Christmas" I countered. Anyway she made the pigs and before I left for work - I would be working all that evening and all day on Christmas Eve - I put the girls to work trimming the tree. And sure enough the last thing I heard was: "Now I feel the Christmas spirit!"

Do you remember last year's post: a dog's christmas? As soon as packages appeared under the tree, Topsy started sniffing around at them. Then she lay down near the tree emanating a threatening rumble when Lucy so much as entered the room. The meaning was clear: there is nothing under this tree for you. Stay away! Unfortunatly the Master and Mistress don't respect Topsy's rules and gave Lucy a package which she barely dared to open, and then dissapeared to the other end of the house with the contents. 

For our christmas dinner this year we had a roast leg of Vension, a gift from a friend whom I had mentored for her home exam (which she passed with a C). Her husband hunts. It was absolutely delicious! While I was carving the roast before dinner I gave each dog a little piece of meat. Venison it turns out is Lucy's favorite meat. So when I started opening packets of kibbles in gravy (chicken and venison flavor) for the cat's christmas this morning Lucy almost went out of her skin. The last to get his Christmas food was Funky who was sleeping in the bathroom. I brought him the bowl to give him a wiff and he was definitly ready for breakfast, so I skooped him up in my other arm to carry him into the kitchen where the cats eat. Lucy was following the scent of the yummy cat food, and Topsy was following her to make sure she didn't get any of it. So it was that Audun was woken up at 7 am by a dogfight errupting outside his bedroom door. I had my hands full, but Husband broke up the fight and Funky got his food.