NORWAY-L Archives

Archiver > NORWAY > 2002-12 > 1039150269


From: "Wendy Thompson" <>
Subject: Intruduction, Christmas, Language
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 21:51:09 -0700


Hei alle,

I joined this list a few weeks ago, and thought it was about time to say
hello. I'm half Norwegian, since my father came from Norway (he was 5 years
old - his parents decided to start a new life in California after WWII), and
I'm also part Danish and part Swedish too on the other side of the pedigree,
so I'm interested in all things Scandinavian. Lately, I can't get enough of
Norwegian language, culture, and traditions. For a long time I thought it
would be fun to learn to speak Norwegian, but it seemed like such an
impractical language since nobody here speaks it, and almost everybody there
speaks English anyway. My grandfather died almost three years ago and I
realized how little of my cultural heritage I had. My family moved to Spain
when I was 11 years old (Air Force), and although we were back in the US two
years later, they didn't get back to California until after I left home, so
I only saw my grandparents a handful of times since I was a young child.

Anyway, since my farfar (that was what I grew up calling him) died, I have
been drawn more and more to his (my) culture, and I am even learning to
speak Norwegian. I started slowly with a book, then got another book,
started writing to cousins in Norway, and now I have found this list and
also another list that is an on-line Norwegian class (norskklassen - you can
find it if you look on yahoogroups, and it's a great list too!). My father
remembers some Norwegian, but I think he was forced to speak only English
from the time that they immigrated. Since he spent two years in Denmark
when he was 19-21 years old, he speaks Danish better than he does Norwegian.
I find that I can read Danish a little - I'll have to study that language
some after my competence in Norwegian gets good enough that I won't get too
confused. How sad that our ancestors (& parents) didn't encourage their
children to know their home languages. I wish that I had heard more than an
occasional passing phrase of Norwegian when I was growing up. I am grateful
for a tape recording I have of my grandfather speaking in Norwegian -
teaching the language to his grandchildren. How wonderful it would be to be
able to talk with him in Norwegian now.

My grandparents did keep a lot of Norwegian traditions. Until we moved too
far away, we always celebrated Christmas Eve with them (and had a few
presents then, as they said that is when the Norwegians get presents) and
their Christmas tree was always decorated with little strings of Norwegian
flags. Does anyone know where to find those strings of Norwegian flags? I
would love to have some of them. Of course I would also have to find some
equivalent American and Scottish flags in order to appease my husband's
sense of heritage too. He is as much into his heritage as I am into mine.
He even plays the bagpipes. Back to Norwegian traditions - I have never
tasted lutefisk, or seen or smelled it, but fiske grateng has always been
one of my favorite dinners, and æbleskiver was our favorite breakfast
(although I think that real Scandinavians eat it for dessert, not breakfast
<G>). We always had krossmakroner (almond pastry cookies) for Christmas
too, and shared it with neighbors. All three of those seemed to be popular
with anyone who tried them. My grandparents had gjetost when we went to
visit them, so I grew up with that too. Gjetost is actually sold in one of
the grocery stores where I live now! Since I have goats, I figured out how
to make gjetost, and my own is getting pretty good, but still not quite as
firm as the cheese imported from Oslo. I got my first sliceable batch (as
opposed to spreadable) just this past summer. My grandmother knitted
Norwegian sweaters and I also knit. My grandfather was a maker of Hardanger
fiddles, which he also played beautifully, and he had his house decorated
with rosmåling and paintings he did of scenes from Norway and portraits of
family members. Oh, and trolls. I have above my computer a painting he did
of the harbor in Stavanger, which I compare frequently with the images from
the web-camera that is there now. It is such a blessing to have the
internet and so much access to my heritage.

I have printed out the cookie recipes from this group's webpage and will be
baking some of them this Christmas. I tried the æbleskiver recipe Saturday
morning, and it was an improvement over the one I had. I didn't know that
there was supposed to be cardamom in it. Susan, thank-you so much for
posting the URL for the woven paper hearts. I don't remember my
grandparents having them, but I had heard of them before and was hoping to
find directions for them. I have been bugging my family about Christmas
traditions the last couple of years and not really getting much from them,
and this list has already given me so much of what I was looking for. I
look forward especially to more discussion of Christmas and other traditions
and Norwegian culture, history, and, well, all things Scandinavian!

Currently I am a member of no less than 15 different email lists, and I
couldn't keep up with all the mail, so I am reading the messages from the
archives rather than receiving each message. So, if you want to write to me
I'll see your message sooner if you CC my email address
or write to me directly. I'm not particularly looking
for genealogy information since I have a lot of it from my grandfather, and
I also can write to his two sisters who still live in Norway, but if any of
you happen to be related to me, that would be really neat! And if I have
any information that might help someone, I would be happy to share. My
grandfather's name was Karl Reiersen, and my grandmother was Gunhild Sofie
Berg, and they came from Stavanger in 1948. Most of my grandmother's family
immigrated too around the same time, but my grandfather was the only one of
his family who came.

Wendy

Double Diamond New World Livestock
Mark & Wendy Thompson
La Mancha, Angora (goat & rabbit), Navajo-Churro
Fiber Processing
Vernal, Utah

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