God Jul (means Merry Christmas)

It’s been a long time since I posted a blog update, but I’ve been doing lots of writing.I hope you forgive me. Lot’s has happened, so this weeks blog will be extra long. So pull up a chair and get comfy.

Christmas traditions of Norway and santas:

Norwegians take their traditions very seriously. They seem to love Christmas or Jule tid. We went to a tree lighting ceremony or Lysfesten (light festival) and it looked like the entire population of Bergen was there (see below). There were lots of Christmas carols. After the tree lighting, they gave us torches and there rock band singing rap and rock and roll 🎸, followed by fire works! BOOM! CRASH! KABLOOIE! POW! The fireworks duplicated as the carollers were singing and the duplicates would POW AND KABLOOIE again and it was so fun!

In Norway, they celebrate advent, which means waiting for Christmas. Families have four candles and you light one each Sunday until Christmas. Also they have three “santas” in Norway. They have blue Santa who lives in the mountains and barn Santa who lives in a barn and normal Santa (Santa Clause) . Blue Santa has elves and for one hour on Christmas eve the mountain opens and the elves enjoy the blue sky until it closes again an our later. It’s call the blue hour. The barn Santa is a little elf called a nisse or Fjøsnissen is a creature from Scandinavian folklore. He loves oatmeal and if you don’t leave out snacks for him on Christmas eve he will give you bad luck and do mischief. He wears a little read hat and if he turns it backwards, he becomes invisible.

Christmas is the time of giving and on that topic I want to tell you about a little project that I am working on. I really care for the world and I have decided to devote my energy to saving elephants 🐘. I hope my kids will have the same ideas.I have started saving my allowance and recycling money in what I call the giving jar. So far I have saved 297 kroner plus my Christmas money from my grandma Martha, so that adds up to 597 kroner ($99). My goal is to raise $190 dollars to help a family start a small farm in Africa. I think this is the best way to help elephants because if people have food they don’t need to sell ivory and kill elephants.

We watched a sad documentary the other day called “the 13th”. It’s about the 13th amendment and liberating people from slavery. It made me really sad and angry because people treat other people so badly. I am very embarrassed by my race. Please watch the 13th on Netflix.

Norwegians love chess!

We’ve also learned that Norwegians love chess! We got to watch the world chess championships. The best chess player in the world is a Norwegian. His name is Magnus Carlson and the Russian guys name is Sergey Karjakin. Magnus won of course. It was very awesome to see professional people play. And now I have some aces up my sleeve. I think I’ll beet him. I play chess with my dad all of the time but I never win, but I’m getting better all of the time.

Hospital horror:
So one afternoon my guts had sharp pains and so we went to the doctors office. They were worried it was something wrong with my appendix so they sent us to the hospital for some tests. And the next I went to the hospital to get an ultra sound. They did not find anything so we thought we could go home, but we had to stay over night!. I thought that might be okay until I realized later on that I would be sleeping in a room of cry baby’s groaning kids. While your reading this you probably reading this your hoping that I didn’t have to get my appendix removed. Well the answer is no, I did not. It just turned out to be swollen lymph nodes from a virus or something. And now I’m ok and my Norwegian life style is back on track.

POKEMON GO UPDATE:

there are new Pokemon you can only get in eggs so keep walkin people! This week I caught two lapras, a porygon and a hitmonlee! Also, the Christmas update has introduced pikachu with a santa hat!There so cute! I hope you catch some (see below) there hays are extra fluffy and there the cutest accessories in the world. Also, if you evolve one, it becomes a Richu wearing a santa hat!