A "julehefte" (literally "Christmas booklet") is a special magazine that is printed and sold for Christmas, usually available in shops during most of December. According to Store Norske, the first julehefte, titled "Julegave eller en liden samling av udvalgte Selskabs- og Drikkeviser ved norske Forfattere" ("Christmas present or a small collection of selected party and drinking songs by Norwegian authors") came out in 1817. In the beginning, the content was mostly religious or informative in nature, but in the beginning of the last century, julehefter with comics started appearing, and eventually almost replaced the other kind.

You can still find julehefter with historical and informative content, for example "Jul i Romsdal" ("Christmas in Romsdal"), which has articles on topics related to Christmas or Romsdal or both, however the majority of julehefter sold are comics (At least when measured in volumes, but not necessarily when measured by number of different titles. There are a lot of local variants of the "Jul i ..." theme.).

Interestingly, for a lot of the comics you find in the form of a julehefte, this is the only place they are found, at least that I am aware of. The most famous example is probably "Knoll og Tott" (The Katzenjammer kids), which has been available as a julehefte since 1911, and which I have never seen anywhere else. The one I am looking most forward to this year is probably "Ingeniør Knut Berg", which is a Norwegian comic about an engineer called Knut Berg, created in the ...

In Norway, we have a fairly interesting collection of "julesanger" (Christmas songs). We obviously have a lot of traditional Christian Christmas carols, some which are more or less free translations of English classics, some originally written in Norwegain. These are the kind that talk about one or more of Jesus, Mary, God, Angels and Christmas. You know what I'm talking about, so I won't include an example of these.

Then there are the more borderline cases, such as "Julekveldsvise" ("Christmas Eve song"), by Alf Prøysen:

Nå har vi vaske golvet
og vi har børi ved,
og vi har sett opp fuggelband,
og vi har pynta tre`!
Nå sett vi øss og kvile
og puste på ei stund,
imens je rugger vogga,
så bror din får en blund.

English (all translations today are hastily done by me, without a second thought for silly things like scanning and rythm and so on)

We have scrubbed the floors,
and we have carried firewood,
and we have put up julenek,
and we have decorated the tree!
Now we sit down to rest,
and breathe for a while,
while I rock the cradle,
so your brother can take a nap.

It then goes on to point out the Christmas star, and mentions that the first time the Christmas star shone, a little boy was born, and three wise men found him by letting the star guide them, and so on. The song doesn't actually mention the little boy's name, though, nor ...

I have been asked, via short message service, to relay a message to you, dear readers and followers of this esteemed web log: Today's post on Christmas is delayed due to unspecified train troubles on the Continent.

I ask you to join me in a silent, or not so silent, all depending on what you prefer, wish that Thor and Camilla will be able to catch their ship back home to these northern shores.

Your humble friend,

Are

PS: If you are ever in Oslo and happen to come across a concert with "Kammerkoret Nova", do attend. They're quite good!

The Norwegian word for ginger bread is "peppekake", which literally means "pepper cake". I don't know why we chose to name it after a different spice than the English, as all the recipes I've looked at also includes ginger ("ingefær", in Norwegian), and some don't even have pepper, but every Norwegian child is taught to associate pepperkake with pepper from a very early age, because of a song. "Pepperkakebakesangen" (literally "The pepper cake baking song"), is a song from a Norwegian children's book, and it contains a recipe for pepperkake:

Når en pepperkakebaker
Baker pepperbakekaker
Tar han først en stekegryte
Og et kilo margarin

Oppi gryta smelter smøret
Og det neste han må gjøre
Er å røre sammen smøret
Og et kilo med farin

Og mens smør og sukker skummer
Tar man åtte eggeplommer
Som man rører rundt i gryta
Med en kilo hvetemjøl

Og til slutt i gryta slepper
Han en liten teskje pepper
Og så rører han omkring
og tømmer deigen på ei fjøl.

English, translation by me:

When a pepper cake baker
Bakes pepper cakes
He starts with a frying pan
And a kilo of margarine

In the pan the butter melts
And the next thing he must do
Is to mix the butter
And a kilo of sugar

And while butter and sugar foams
One takes eight egg yolks
Which one stirs around in the pan
With a kilo of flour

And at the end into the pan ...

Just as the grownups have juleøl, the children get their "julebrus" (Christmas fizzy drink). Each fizzy drink factory will usually only make one type of julebrus, and quite often, one factory's julebrus will only be found in that part of the country, so there is usually not quite as large a selection of julebrus as there is of juleøl. Still, tests do take place from time to time, and some people can be fiercly patriotic regarding their local julebrus. I quote from a thread in the category "Arendals julebrus" (Arendal is a city in the south of Norway) in the forum at julebrus.org:

Godt å se at årets julebrusavstemning er i gang! Etter et hårfint nederlag i fjor er vi klare til å ta opp kampen og knuse sølevannet fra Hamar og Lillehammer.

English, translation by me:

Nice to see that this years julebruspoll is up. After a narrow loss last year, we are ready to go to battle and crush the mud water from Hamar and Lillehammer.

As I said, some people can be fiercly patriotic, but not that many people. If you have read this quote, you have read almost 10% of all content in the forums of julebrus.org. Still, julebrus is quite a local thing, and I think a lot of people could at least be said to be mildly patriotic of their julebrus.

There is also the matter of the colour. Julebrus comes mainly in two colours: red and yellow ...

Usually, I feel the shops should wait until at least the end of November before they start stocking up on Christmas products. For example, I usually don't feel the need for Christmas marzipan, Christmas chocolate or Christmas decorations in the middle of October. There is one exception, however, and that is "juleøl". Juleøl means "Christmas beer", and is a tradition dating back a millennium or more, according to an article about juleøl as a pagan tradition on forskning.no. Apparently, the brewing of beer for the midwinter celebration was declared mandatory by the older Gulating laws (the earliest known collection of Norwegian laws, written down during the late 1000s), with hefty fines for those who didn't comply.

Juleøl is usually somewhat darker than the average Norwegian beer, and has a stronger taste. In part, this is to go better with all the heavy food people usually eat during Christmas, and I imagine juleøl and aquavit is by far the most popular alchololic drink to have with Christmas dinner. Not all juleøl are meant to go with food, though, or at least not dinner-type food. For example, the excellent brewery Nøgne Ø (means "naked isle") has this description of one of their juleøl:

UNDERLIG JUL
The name of this beer is "Peculiar Christmas" in english. This spiced Christmas ale is strange - and indeed a fusion beer. We have gathered inspiration from the Norwegian drink “gløgg”, and as such this is quite an uncompromising brew. Best served with “goro” and ...

The last of the four great Norwegian Christmas dinners is "svineribbe", which literally means "pork rib". It is obviously made from pork ribs, and is usually cut to give a relatively large, rectangular piece of meat, about two inches thick. As this is not the traditional Christmas dinner in my family, I'm not entirely sure about all the details, for example I don't know if you cut away the bones, if you don't, or if it's optional. I do know, however, that svineribbe is prepared in the oven, that the rind is left on, and that it is absolutely essential to get nice, crisp crackling.

(Does crackling mean what wikipedia says it means? Is crackling crispy by definition? Is rind the correct term for uncooked crakling? Why didn't they teach us these important words in school?)

In order to help people achive the ultimate goal of perfecty, crisp crackling, there will usually be a number of TV shows either fully or partially dedicated to Christmas food in the last few days before Christmas, and all kind of different techniques will be presented. The main things seems to be that if the svineribbe is placed on a flat surface in the oven, fat will pool on the surface, and this prevents the crispyness you want. The simple solution is to place something under the middle of the meat, and upside-down plate, for example, which will allow the fat to flow away. The problem with this is ...

(This article should have been posted yesterday, but due to a misunderstanding between myself and the calendar, this didn't happen. My apologies to anyone who, after reading this article, should feel inspired and want to pick up this tradition. You will just have to try again next year.)

The 13th of December is called "Luciadagen" in Norway. It literally means "The Lucia day", and it is of course the Norwegian name for St. Lucy's day. Along with St. John, St. Lucy is one of only two saints to get a relatively large celebration in Norway. While St. John is celebrated by people lighting bonfires and having barbeques in the evening of St. John's Eve, Luciadagen is usually celebrated in kindergartens and schools. Some of the children will dress up in white robes, with tinsel in their hair. One of the children, usually a girl, will have a crown of candles and lead, while all the others will have one candle each, and walk behind her her in a procession. Traditionally I assume it was real candles, but nowadays fake electric candles are more common, at least for the crown. These children will then walk around the school or kindergarten, sing "Sankta Lucia", also known as "Luciasangen" (The St. Lucy song), and hand out a special type of bun called a "lussekatt".

Sankta Lucia (first verse):

Svart senker natten seg
i stall og stuer.
Solen har gått sin vei.
Skyggene truer.
Inn i vårt mørke hus
Stiger med ...

"Pinnekjøtt" is the second most popular Christmas meal in Norway, and it's what I've had for dinner every Christmas since I was old enough to eat real food. Pinnekjøtt is made from salted and dried ribs of lamb or sheep, and pinnekjøtt is thus most popular on the west coast of Norway, where it's traditionally been very common to have sheep. It is usual to buy pinnekjøtt as a whole side, which you then split into long, narrow pieces by cutting between the ribs. The pinnekjøtt must then be left in cold water for 24 hours to dilute the salt. To cook it, it should be steamed for about three hours, and this is traditionally done by placing sticks of birch in the bottom of the pot, to keep the meat out of the water. The word pinnekjøtt literally means "stick meat" (stick as in a piece of wood), and I've heard two possible explanations for this term, either that each rib looks a bit like a stick, so thus stick meat, or that it refers to the sticks one uses in the steaming, so meat steamed on sticks, shortened to stick meat.

Cooking pinnekjøtt is almost trivially easy, as all you need to do is to put it in a large pot with some sticks, add water, bring to a boil, and then keep it boiling for three hours while making sure it doesn't dry out. The usual sides are also quite straightforward ...

"Risengrynsgrøt" (literally rice grain porridge) also known as "risgrøt", or just "grøt", is a common thing to eat all year (except perhaps in summer), but it has special significance around Christmas. It is frequently served at a "juletrefest" or other pre-Christmas gatherings, and is often used as lunch in Christmas eve. In such cases, it is usually refered to as "Julegrøt", even though the recipe is the same as the rest of the year. For the julegrøt, it is traditional to add one almond to the pot shortly before serving. The person who finds the almond wins a prize, which is usually a marzipan pig.

It is very easy to make risengrynsgrøt. You need about 0.5 liters of milk and 0.1 liters of rice per person. You can get special porridge rice, but normal rice works perfectly, at a quarter of the price. Put the rice and milk in a pot, add a tiny pinch of salt, and bring it to a boil while stirring almost all the time. Then you turn down the heat enough to keep it almost boiling, and stir frequently for about 20 minutes. Serve with sugar, cinnamon and a piece of butter.

Camilla tells me risengrynsgrøt is known as rice pudding in English, and that our English speaking friends all seem convinced that it is actually a dessert, not a dinner. I am fairly sure that this must be based on a misunderstanding by the English speaking peoples. It is perfectly understandable ...