God Jul

If your grandmother bakes dozens of christmas cookies each year, and the family wonders why she bakes so many.... you can thank the Norwegians for that. Minnesota's Norwegian population believed the more cookies, the more prosperous and better new year. Grandma is looking out for the family.

Christmas reigns supreme in Norway, and the Norwegians reign supreme at our site. The volunteers have their own collection of artifacts and antiques that they arrange in one of the buildings. It truly makes the place feel like home, and it makes it a fun place to visit. The "Female Remedy" medicine is always good for a joke, as are the many Swedish jokes that go back and forth with nearly every visitor.

This weekend, I visited my "Cousin Britta. " I'm Sophia, who is visiting because I'm depressed due to my betrothed getting lost and dying in a snowstorm...yes, they wrote my own 2-page biography for me. I learned how to make mandelkakes and sandbakels. Ideally, every Norwegian home had an odd number of types of cookies, to symbolize good luck. We hope to make it to nine. So far, we have six including the above and rosettes, kringla, smaltringers, and krumkake.

Keep in mind all this is made in a wood burning stove. We kept the door to the house open most of the time! It got hot.

For our meals, we cooked roasted pheasant and barley with goat cheese. We made beer, beef, and barley stew on Sunday. We always had a crowd. Where's the Lutefisk? The Gundersons say they left it in Norway. But we can smell it from here.

"Julia" who is Britta and Acksel's character-generated granddaughter helped with cookies, as did "Anna," Acksel's niece. Got this straight? It took me awhile to learn the histories... but it's a game living historians play, and I wanted to try to measure up this weekend. It was fun.



In the kitchen, you'll also find a marzipan pig--they still sell these in stores today. On Christmas morning, the mother would hide an almond in the rice porriage. Whoever had the almond in their bowl got the marzipan pig, thus having good luck, good health, and good fortune the entire year.

Outside of the doorway, you'll see the Juleneg. The last sheath of wheat gathered from the field is hung outside of the door during Jul for the birds to eat with the idea that the birds will remember this and leave crops alone the following season.

Wheat or straw is pretty important to the Norwegians, and it stems from pagan times. Abundant wheat meant prosperity and luck. The Julebak is made of wheat (more on that when we cover the Swedes) as are most of the ornaments for the tree. Norwegians didn't have Christmas trees until the Lutheran church and their German ways got involved. Under the tree, you'll find straw. The straw is spread on the floor for Christmas Eve and everyone sleeps in the hay--hired help, guests, everyone is equal and on the floor. The beds are left open for ancestors to visit. When baby Jesus and the manger came in the picture, it only made straw or hay more important to the holiday.

The Nisse (niss-uh) is something like an elf. He's naughty and fiesty and he lives under the floor. If you leave him porriage, he might help you with your chores. But if he's upset or you forget him, he'll cause havoc. When something goes wrong in the house, we blame the Nisse. I'm convinced we have one at home, because I know Dave can't be to blame for every little mess... ...

One Norwegian joke before I go... do you know why the Swedish men grow so tall? Because they get so much practice looking over the mountains at the beautiful Norwegian women.


(For the Swedes reading this, I'm collecting jokes for the future Swedish blog!)