We had a beautiful but hectic day. At 8:30 a.m. I walked down to Oddernes Kirke (which Bill photographed early), where Walter played an excerpt of Grieg at his school's Christmas pageant. Then mom and I had lunch at the Julelunsj sponsored by the University of Agder. We drank a non-alcoholic version of glögg, had a lunch of salmon, roast beef, potato salad and raspberry cake, followed by singing, speeches, and gifts. I enjoyed one song, in particular, Julekveld I Skogen, which Wiki describes below:
"The plot of the song takes place in a dilapidated living in the woods, where there lives a poor and old couples, without any other Christmas food a "musty pork rind." Poverty these suffers are described with words like "Christmas Tears," "Christmas hulk" and "Christmas sigh." Christmas is saved by the eldest son of the couple, the family's black sheep, come home from America with a suitcase full of Christmas gifts. Thus ends the song, after all happy with that, "It was in July anyway!"."
What I loved was the prodigal American son wears sunglasses, sports a cigar, and brings bounteous gifts, including new false teeth for his parents. The song was written in 1963 before Norway reaped the boon of oil wealth.
From there we went downtown for Walter's recital at a local nursing home--Mark, meanwhile, attended a birthday party at a bowling alley.
Then we opened a few gifts, including the Norwegian sweaters from Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Jenny (thank you so much for the monetary gift that went towards Bill's sweater.)
We are now all officially Norwegian. Tomorrow it's off to Denmark at 5:30 a.m.!!, albeit sans some of Mom's luggage, which still hasn't arrived via SAS.
Love,
Martha, Bill, Mark and Walter
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