xmas would be ruined for me if i put my tree or any other decorations up before the 23rd of december! as per norwegian tradition i put my "star of bethlehem"/"advent star" (star shaped light) up in my window on 1st sunday of advent (which is this sunday the 27th!), but that's it!
in norway, xmas eve is "the big day" rather than xmas day, and the night before it is tradition to clean decorate the house ready for xmas eve. as kids, me and my sis used to love helping with decorating the tree, then go to bed and wake up xmas eve morning and *magically* the whole house had been transformed and pressies were under the tree waiting to be opened in the evening!
xmas eve daytime we would get wrapped up warm and go round to friends and relatives and place our pressies for them under their trees, and have some nibbles etc whilst xmas dinner was cooking slowly in the oven at home. then we'd go home to a wonderfully smelling house and get dressed up, ready for xmas dinner at 5pm, followed by "endless" hours of coffee, and a few tipples for the grown ups, waiting for the pressies which we'd usually open around 8-9pm. (nowadays it's usually dad who starts nagging about opening the pressies as he wants to go to bed early!! lol)
this is how my xmases have been for as long as i can remember...
i'm not going home to norway for xmas this year (for obvious reasons..) but the family are staying with us over here instead, so i'm making a traditional norwegian xmas in our house!
and then we also celebrate xmas day as well, as dad is english! talk about best of both worlds!!! (no pressies for us on xmas day though, as we opened them the previous night!)
i plan to make xmas the same magical experience for my kids too!! starting from next year when bump will be about 10 months old!
aaaw, just thinking about xmas makes me excited!!! sorry if i've raved on a bit!!!!
