Jul is the term used for the Christmas holiday season in Norway. Originally, “jul” was the name of a month in the old Germanic calendar, corresponding roughly to the time from mid-December through mid-January, and the concept of “jul” as a period of time rather than a specific event, prevails in Norway.

Christmas has been lovely, but also a bit stressful, hehe. We ate marvelous food, played with cars with Eirik, opened presents and enjoyed each-others company. Little baby Eirik (soon to be 1) were taking his naps, mashing his food all over the place, pulling Pernille's tail, and also putting a smile on everyone's faces whenever he was up and about.

The major day of celebration in Norway, as in most of Northern Europe, is December 24. Although it is legally a regular workday until 16:00, most stores close early.

I'm spending my Christmas with my family, this year in my mother's house. My sisters boyfriend is making the dinner, he made it last year when we all celebrated in their apartment in Oslo so I have no doubts it will be delicious.

And as usual I will be the photographer, but this year I am making a point of not being behind the camera the entire time!

I hope you all have an amazingly magical Christmas ♥ And I'll see you all again soon.

What I'm wearing this Christmas:

People give one another gifts, often supposedly receiving them from Santa Claus.

All done with Christmas shopping, Christmas presents all packed, Christmas cookies baked (ehm, well, I'm not much of a baker so there's not a lot), Christmas decorating done, Christmas-eve plans ready.
But I still haven't decided what dress to wear.
So there's still a lot to do! Hehe.

Being a lazy before Yule-tide days of dress wearing:

Poetry (from the Latin poeta, a poet) is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning.

It's not every day you see your photograph on a cake! But last Thursday I did just that. Verket's annual poem book was launched, "The sound lingers". But before everyone arrived at the launch scheduled at 12 o'clock, the contributors had a private gathering with coffee, cake and speeches. I love cake. And coffee.

As I've mentioned before I have 6 (not 5, I counted, hehe) pictures in it and the cover itself. It was Heidi's brilliant idea to put it my picture on the cover, so many thank-yous too her ♥
No pictures of the book yet here though, it's Christmas gift to almost all my family.

What I would have worn if I didn't have to walk:

I just love my swallow necklace ♥

Frost consists of spicules of ice which grow out from the solid surface. The size of the crystals depends on time, temperature, and the amount of water vapor available, based on wind direction, "Frost arrows" might form.

The world is frozen but I am not. Well, barely not, it's been really cold the last couple of weeks. Frost have clung to the trees for what seems to be an unreasonable amount of time, usually it melts as the first ray of sun-light that hits them, but it's been so cold the frost has extended it's lifetime for days after days.

This weekend the temperature rose to 0 degrees Celsius, and what looked like a sugar-frosted wonderland returned to be just a regular winter landscape. Thanks for the magic winter ♥ !

Do you think there'll be a white-wonderland were you live in time for Christmas?

I've worn this, and I've been cold:

John Lennon had a strong affection for cats, actually having owned as many as six at a time.

My friend Adrian have a theory about this song: if you don't know if a person is good or bad you can just ask weather or not they like John Lennon's Imagine and then you'll know. I love this song.

In visual experiences, the angels described appear in various forms, either the "classical" one (human countenance with wings), in the form of extraordinarily beautiful or radiant human beings, or as beings of light.

It's been snowing again, maybe another 20cm last Sunday!

There's snow everywhere, the snow borders on the sidewalk are getting tall, and the fear of getting an ice spear through your head made of the heat-leakage from the roof-edges of practically every house in town is definitely there. And the clothes, my lord the clothes, I feel like the Michelin-man whenever I leave the house. Layer upon layer to keep warm, and big bulky jackets and shoes.

But even with all that, winter is still so pretty ♥

This weekend we celebrated Malene's birthday with a costume-party
I was an angel:

In recent times the commonest observance of Advent outside church circles has been the keeping of advent candles.

This year I'm slightly lucky when it comes to gifts. Verket makes a book filled with poems and pictures once a year around Christmas times. Anyone who is a registered user with Verket at any of their activities could send in contributions like pictures and text, a jury judged what got in the book and not. So I figured I'd send in a couple of pictures, and I was lucky enough to get 5 in the book, and one of my pictures even made the cover! Hooray!

The contributers gets a free book and can buy 5 cheap, so that's my Christmas present to most of my family this year. I hope they like it ♥

There's still plenty of snow by the way, and it's been the coldest November in 91 years! So the fjord will probably freeze if it keeps up, Hallevannet (a freshwater lake not far from here) has already frozen, me and A will have to get out to Elva soon to see if the ice is safe to walk on.

When I'm outside this scarf always gets full of snow: