About christmas decor.. or not…

Advent (from the Latin word adventus, meaning "coming") is a season of the Christian church, the period of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus, in other words, the period immediately before Christmas.

The progression of Advent may be marked with an Advent calendar reckoning Advent to start on 1 December, a practice introduced by German Lutherans.

This (above) was borrowed from Wikepedia

To us, advent is the time to put out the four candles… we’d light one candle each sunday before christmas… and this is a purple time for us… the four candles are usually purple (this have changed lately.. where people find their own colors that fit with their domestic decor)

I still use purple candles, and I love it that way. I really like purple too, so it’s not a problem for me :-) hehe..

first sunday

second sunday

third sunday

fourth sunday

and this means – christmas is here! At last!

Our kids usually have their advent calendar, and these come in every shape and form… but it is a countdown for x-mas( with numbers from 1 – 24) … and the kids get one small thing each day before x-mas.

We also put up an advent star.. with light in it.. in our window during advent, and this is the one I really like.. it makes it so cozy!! I have several that I have bought, and one special one that I made with my own two hands :-) (picture below)

Other than this.. there’s not a whole lot of christmas decor in our homes before december 23rd…. this is the night we call “little christmas-eve”. This night we put out all the red, white and green stuff :-) ,santas and candles.. christmas tree and all that comes with it.. and before night fall (after the kids have gone to sleep) “santa” puts all the presents under the tree, so that come christmas morning (ours is celebrated on december 24th) the kids will come into the livingroom.. to a tree decorated and filled with presents underneath it!!!

I also do the christmas stocking for my kids, although this is an american thing.. it has arrived here as well! :-)

Oh.. we do have one tradition though.. the kids usually make a gingerbread house, decorated with lots of candy :-) very sweet(!) hehe

You can actually see my candles in the background here… if you look really close! hehe… this is an old photo.. next weekend we will start the advent decoration. on december 1st.

Have a wonderful advent!!!!

Another award!! :-)

Wouldn’t you know…

I got an award back from Buffie :-)

Thank you so much!!!

Pass this on to 5 blogging friends.
Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56.
Write the 5th sentence, as well as two to five sentences following that...

A little challenge in itself for me… because if you are going to understand it, I would have to translate.. but here it goes:

The closest book is called Jensine

(a girls name)

It’s written by my absolute favorite norwegian author, her name is

Frid Ingulstad.

- why, aren’t you a fast walker all of a sudden, I can hardly keep up with you. The aunt smiled. – are you that eager to see the castle?

Jensine nodded without looking at her. They had reached the pavilion now.

- Can we stay here and listen to them for a while? Jensine looked at her aunt with a puppies eyes.

-I thought you were eager to see the Kings castle?

- Yes, but can we please listen to that lovely music first??

******

NOW, I have to pass this on

to 5 friends :-)

Robin at ~The Robin's Nest~

Karen at ~ HeartFelt Living

Jessica ~ THE COZY KETTLE

Nikkicrumpet at ~ Blah, Blah, Blah, blog

Laura at ~ Decor to Adore

:-)

All done.. I will let you know I did want to give one to Bridget too, but she just got one (or several) …hehe..

SO Bridget…

you get this one

and it’s so true…

…you do!

(hehe, I’m a poet.. and I know it)

hahaha!!

Have fun everybody!

Buffie! :-)

~*~DEAREST BUFFIE!~*~

I have been given awards on my Norwegian blog site.... and I just had to save ONE for this , my english version... because there is a lady here.. YES, it's Buffie.... that I have grown quite fond of, and appreciate very much!! She took me on with no fear, she even "let me" win! a prize on one of her posts (her 118th one) even though I am from a far away country!!!

(what she sends will be posted later) :-)

I would like you to have this dalmatian award Buffie, because you make me laugh, you made me feel welcome, and never once questioned the fact that I am from a different country!!

There are more of you out there... I know, and I would like to send all of you a little "thank you!" from the bottom of my heart! I am so happy to have met you all, and thanks for visiting! Keep coming back, and I am sure there'll be more awards to come! ;-)

(I know there is!!)
Have a wonderful day!!!!

MY BUNAD...

Here we go

This is the top part of my bunad, it even has the ribbon attached to it still.

It is made from wool, and is sown and embroidered by my own mother.

OK, I had to move it to a brighter room, with a whiter door to hang it on... not easy to take close up photos without flash... as you can see the skirt part of the dress is folded.. we call that plissè...

And here's a close up of the chest embroidery

And even closer

Now I have attached the apron, that has A LOT of embroidery on it.. this is the top part

and this is the bottom part

here are some close up photos of the skirt/apron...

Now on to the back

even the belt has decor

some close up pictures of the belt....

and some from the back

it was hard to keep the camera steady... so some pictures are a bit blurry....

this is a pocket... that is sown on to a silver locket... this sits on the waist line of the dress, and is a smart thing to keep money or a camera in...

ON to the silver

this piece is worn in the neck part of the shirt... I didn't have my shirt around, it is white linen, and has the same embroideries as the dress.. only it's all white.

This next one is big, and sits on the chest part

and we have cuffs and earrings to match

I found this picture of a girl modeling the dress, and as you can see, she has the shirt and the special shoes as well... I forgot to take photos of the shoes.

Meet my GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS

while preparing my BUNAD pictures..

I will introduse you to my

GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS...

I visited my mother today, and she has this wonderful picture on the wall.. IT looks like it's been drawn in charcoal or something... it must be really old!!!! My grandmother was born in 1919, her mother in the late 1800's... so this photo could be from 1870-80's... I'm not sure.

These two imigrated from Finland to America, and made their home on the EAST-coast somewhere... I must investigate! They are buried there, their graves are probably gone a long time ago.. with no family around...... my great-grandmother moved to Portland and then to Norway... (luckily for ME )

(for any newcomers.. you can read about that a couple of posts down)

What struck me in this photo is that HE has brown eyes! MY son has brown eyes, from his brown-eyed father most likely.. but my mother has always found that special, saying we have never had brown eyes in our family!!! HM! I must ask her to take a second look at this picture.. like me, she has probably not REALLY looked at it.

Poor things... they look so bored!

They've probably sat that way for a while. hehe!!

But you got to love their clothes!

Our national costume.. the BUNAD

NOW.. this would be quite a long story...

but I am going to narrow it down as much as possible,

In the olden days people made their own clothes, mostly from wool... and cotton... but to stay warm they made pants, vests, jackets, skirts etc. from woven wool... and these were their work clothes, and for dressing up, they started to add nicer colors, aprons with embroidery, belts etc. this has been through some kind of evolution, and has turned in to our Norwegian national costume, called BUNAD.

most Norwegians owns one.. and it's used in weddings, christenings, gatherings, celebrations of all sorts, where it's fitting to wear it.

I have one, and I will go into detail about that in my next post.

PEOPLE FROM EVERY WALK OF LIFE COULD WEAR ONE.

Like the Royal family

Kids, women, men, dolls, trolls and santas ;-)

they all wear them ...

I hope you enjoyed... and like I said.. will let you see mine too... with some up-close pics of the details and embroidery, and silver.