merry christmas! god jul!

                                                                
Tonight is "lille julaften" or "little Christmas eve," the night we'd always decorate the tree in Norway. We cheated and did it last Saturday instead. Lilly is mesmerized by it. By now, we've cleaned the house, written cards (sorry; those going overseas will be a bit late), wrapped presents, and stocked up on food and drink. We'll be celebrating Norwegian style with our friends Amanda and Matt (who's of Norwegian heritage) and their son Avery who's two and a half. Lilly and Avery play pretty well together now, so it should be fun for all! Since their house is bigger, we're having the party at their house. Amanda has already blogged about how excited (?!) she is to be cooking a  pork roast for the first time in her life (not to mention it being a Norwegian style one, "ribbe"!). We'll have all the traditional sides: the meat balls Matt grew up with, surkål (sour kraut that Amanda made this fall), brussel sprouts, lingonberry jam, potatoes, gravy, salad. Christmas ale and Linie akevitt to help the "ribbe" go down. And a berry cream (can't find multer here so I'll use a mix of red berries instead) with krumkaker for dessert (homemade by another friend of mine in town). Seven different kinds of cookies with coffee. But we don't get to indulge in those till we've sung seven different kinds of carols and danced around the tree after dessert. And then Santa may come with some presents for the children...

I feel so blessed to have our home, our friends, our child during this holiday season. Christmas is filled with so much nostalgia, such a sense of wonder, but also with wounds. Lilly puts a new spin on everything, her joy is a marvel to me!
And, to top it all off: it'll be a very white Christmas! We've already received lots of snow and now we're in the midst of a snow storm! Could be tricky to get even from here to Amanda and Matt's, but we'll make it!

Leighton and I also look forward to some quiet time at the house. Last year we had Christmas in Gran Canaria / Oslo, this year we're in Northfield, Minnesota. We've both submitted the written work that was due by end of this year. Since we got here in September, we've taken turns heading over to the Carleton College library in town to write (you can see us there in the above picture). Lilly's been at the City library almost every day for "classes" there: reading books, singing songs, playing with other children her age.