I am happy to report that after many weeks of awful brown grow-out, I am finally back to being a redhead again. I smell strongly of ammonia, but couldn't be happier- it's even curling nicely!!
At the moment I am sitting in Grandma and Jan's living room watching a massive snow storm outside- its beautiful! And if this keeps up, it looks like I may get my white Christmas after all.
[The front of Grandma and Jan's house- though there is much more snow now!]
[The front of Grandma and Jan's house- though there is much more snow now!]This afternoon I rode along with Jan and we played the Julenissen
(Norwegian version of Father Christmas; basically the Christmas elf) and delivered gifts and doughnuts to Jan's two daughters and grandkids. Doughnuts are a big Christmas treat here and grandma out did herself and made them from scratch. Delicious!The Julenissen is actually quite fascinating. Unlike Santa Clause, Julenissen can be a spiteful little bugger. He will gladly leave you a Christmas present in exchange for a nice bowl of Christmas porridge, but if the Norwegian kiddies forget to leave him some porridge, he will make their crops fail and their cattle barren. Or worse.
In Norway, you do not screw with the nissen (the Julenissen is simply one of many different kinds of nissen).
Still, we should pity the little Christmas dude, because he's being pushed aside by American cultural imperialism, and is turning into the Santa Claus, who is unbearably jolly and whose most interesting sin is leaving lumps of coal lying around. One interesting fact I have learned while being here is that the Norwegian people tend to place most of the blame for Santa on the Coca-Cola company and its Christmas comercials. huh
God Jul (Happy Christmas) to all!
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