Im aware this is rather late and as always I apologise, in my defence I actually wrote it about a month or so ago and I have been waiting to get hold of pictures to add. As I am still waiting I thought I would publish it now and I will hopefully add some pictures soon.
For many years I have not thought of myself as a big Chrismas guy. A mixture of working in retail and hopsitality around the insane season along with over played songs and forced happiness has always made me think the whole thing is rather over rated. In addition my Christmases have been very hectic and varied for many years and of course the horrible realisation of the older you get the more responsibility moves from having to look happy with even the dodgiest present to actually having to go out and by loads yourself.
In hindsight this was proberly largely the thoughts of an short sighted grumpy adalesant and I have come to realise their are loads of things I love about Christmas. The food is unparralled, more drink than you can possibly get through and spending loads of time with family and friends. Presents catchy music and corney films aside (all of which i must admit i do enjoy) the family, friends, food and drink is definatly the makers for me.
I would like to cover the whole Christmas period in one post from Early December to New years but alas I fear it would become a novel so I will just go for the 2 main Christmas days, December 24th,25th. To give some perspective I will first summarise what these days consist of in England in my family. Christmas eve, the 24th of December, traditionally this is a day for children to escape their parents and enjoy time with their friends before the harcore family time begins. By children I mean, 18 and up, and by enjoy time with friends I mean, hit the town. Typically this should not be a proper session of course as one must be able to take part in the following days festivities, however accedents do happen. Other traditions include the more casual option of hitting the local pub, or for the religeous families, of which their are many. Their is midnight mass.
Christmas day, 25th, when we were kids it was get up at 6am, kick Dad, make tea so my Mum would get up, convince her she doesnt have time to shower and do make up and then everyone would enter the living room which would have been filled with presents and spend the next hour or so opening them in our dressing gowns and pyjamas. Now adults, our morning begins with, bacon, smoked salmon and scrabled eggs with chamagne (hair of the dog) and then a slightly less hyperactive and shorter present opening session (we still dont let Mum shower and do make up before this, it just wouldnt be right).
After presents its all hands on deck for Dinner, and English Christmas dinner is a thing of beauty and requires a huge amount of, hands, time and effort to create all the dishes. Dinner will be served around 2/3pm and will consist of; Turkey, stuffing, pigs in blanket, roast potatoes, mashed swede, roast parsnips and carrots, brussel sprouts, coliflower cheese and other vegetables and huge quantaties of gravy. Different households vary on the details but I would consider that the ideal. This meal is looked forward to by most all year and rightly so, I love it!! Desert will traditionally be a Christmas pudding coverd in brandy and set light to, served with brandy cream idealy.
After dinner its the Queens speech followed by a flurry of other Christmas specials on TV/napping. The evening will then usually consist of a collection of overplayed games such as trivial persuit. One of what I consider to be the most important things throughout this day is the alcohol. My system is; chamapge breakfast, snowballs for a little while (these are an eggnog style drink, amazing and refreshing) couple of beers right before dinner, wine with dinner and then for a little while after followed by some light refreshing gin, port preferably or a very nice wine again for the evening cheeseboard, and finally ending the night on a good scotch. I have explained this system to several Norwegians all of which have found it mental. What one must realise is the idea here is not to get drunk (not until after the cheeseboard at least) but to stay merry, calm and refreshed all day and enjoy the drinks for their taste. All the alcohol served on the day will be of good quality, none of your Fosters/Hansa larger or cheap wine, its a day to enjoy the finer things.
Now we have covered England its on to Norwegian which I experienced for the first time this year. Firstly the 24th is the big day here and is called Julaften, the main meal, presents and all that malarky are all on the night of the 24th. Their are many reasons why this is good and bad in my opinion which hopefully Ill get into at some point but lets see how we get on. One must bare in mind that this is the way for nearly all of Europe, it seems only Britiain and America (maybe Australlia?) do the 25th as present day, but Im not certain.
So despite being the main day, the day itself of the 24th is a fairly relaxed affiar. Dinner prep is relively easy requiring few hands. The "kids therefore" spend the whole day in pyjamas watching TV until dinner. I could write a whole post about the traditional Norwegian Christmas TV is but I'll save that for another year.
So what is dinner I hear you cry, well there are different tradtions around Norway which I will get into another time but in Bergen it is Pinekjøtt (direct translation, stick meat). This is dried and very heavily salted sheep ribs that is then boiled, some can also be smoked. This is served with boiled potatoes and mashed swede. Yer thats it! I have a large amount of opinoins on this meal, firstly it is massively over rated, everyone looks forward to this like our Christmas dinner and quite frankly I see no comparison. But hype aside the taste is, ok. If it were a normal meal any other day of the week, I would say it was quite interesting, not great and not really want it again in all honesty. Its not bad by any means, I just really dont think its that good. Its also so dense and salted and without a green vegetable to be seen you will spend the rest of the night recovering from what you have done to yourself.
Traditionally to help break down the salt and help you forget about it pinekjøtt should be served with akevitt, the traditional Norwegian spirit, its a potato based spirit like Vodka I beleive containing some spices and often matured in oak casks. Now it sounds interesting and like whiskey it is translated to mean the water of life, however you will never get this and your glenfiddich confused that I can assure you. I actually dont mind the good quality stuff (the cheap is beyond dreadful), it can have some interesting flavours and I am a big spirit drinker, but in all honesty it lacks the clean, rounded quality of any good whiskey or vodka in my opinoin and a classic case of upholding tradition over common sense. Which is as good a reason to drink something as anything else I suppose.
Anyway moving swiftly on, after dinner its time for presents. Why you would open presents when you are tired after dinner and just before its getting time to put the kids to bed is beyond me but in a way its nice. Although you cant try any of the clothes you receieve on as your all dressed up in your best. After all that its a couple more drinks, and off to bed. So the 25th, with the special day out the way it goes back to all being very chilled with once again, nothing inparticular going on. Or atleast thats how it should be, I spent the whole day with intermitant assistnace from Marianne cooking a massive English style Christmas Turkey dinner with all the trimmings and I was very proud of the result and it went down a storm.
So their is one great thing about the Norwegians main day being the 24th, every year we can have pinekjøtt on their special day and we can have Turkey on mine, everyone gets their tradtions, although sadly I did have to massively tone down the drinking.
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