We learnt early on that most of what we do back home are done similarly here - you'll have celebrations and presents at home with the family on Christmas day, the Christmas Eve dinner, attend church masses and have Christmas carols. However, the locals have a variety of events following up till Christmas. One of which is optional but I LOVE the idea - from 1st December till 25th December, one can create a personalized countdown to Christmas for a specific person.
For example, a couple can have a Christmas calendar where on alternative days, the partner gives the other a little gift and saving a BIG one for Christmas day. We've heard so many creative ones that were done - a mother designed a 25 day cleaning program for a son - first day, a toilet brush with a note attached, "This will help you wash your toilet :) Love, Ma"; Hilarious, ain't it? I am the type that loves giving surprises and I can sooooooo see myself setting up a variety of ways on doing this, *devilish grin*!
Companies will normally hold Christmas dinners or parties around a month before. We've just attended ours last week and in one word, lovely! We were brought to a different town called Lyngdal (Wiki: Lyngdal) and the dinner was held at a famous resort by the sea called Rosfjord Strandhotell (Please check out their "The Cave" dinner arrangement, personal fav!). The evening there was such a pleasant one, I HAVE to go back to the resort again SOON.
The evening started off with people getting drinks at the bar - you would realize quickly that many here drink more alcohol than H20, especially Friday & Saturday nights. Once the ballroom was ready, we were free to seat anywhere we fancy. When everyone is settled down, the night started off with greetings and speech. Now, I'm not sure about you, where I come from, when a dinner is a buffet-style, you can literally see the wheels' turning in everyone's minds on how to get ahead of the queue and get to the premium food or how to get as much food as possible on a plate or ..two. Here, there is no such thing. The host of the night decides which table should start the buffet first and no one or at least we've yet to encounter anyone that had taken more than they think they should. Thus the queues are orderly and the food still looks fresh out of the kitchen, even when the last table
reaches the queue.
Now.. I wish I had taken pictures but it seemed a little out-of-place to do so, I will try to take some during Christmas :) Traditional Christmas food such as the pinnekjøtt (wiki: pinnekjott), lutefisk (wiki: lutefisk) , juleribbe (wiki: pork ribs), were all available. My partner and I are a tad more adventurous and tried all of them, thing about being Asians, our palette tends to veer towards stronger tasting food. To us, we preferred the roasted pork with the crispy skin *yums* and me, I love their fresh prawns. Fresh and with an abundance of prawn roes in between the two rows of legs. I always call those prawns - Ikea prawns :P
After the main courses, there was a little quiz with prizes at stake. After three rounds, it was time for dessert. Desserts that I've had so far are always jelly, mouse or cream based, I'll post more specifically about desserts and food here. (Scandinavian bakes are FAMOUS and at a typical birthday party, you may have 5 or more different cakes) We then had a stand-up comedy - just in case if you're wondering, our Norsk is not that fluent yet :) so neither one of us understood, hehe. Finally, everyone either had some drinks courtesy of the company and chatted the night away or danced the night away :)
I believe we are in for a lovely lovely Christmas though way colder on the outside, may be just as warm on the inside :)
Counting down to a White Christmas with one of my fav Christmas song, :)
ABE