Merry Christmas efurryone! It's snowing here and all Christmasy today.
With one of Mom's favourite Christmas songs (Swedish) we hope to start off your Christmas Eve in a good way. Do you recognize their outfits? They're celebrating St.Lucia's day (remember from day 13?)
We might not be much online the next week as we'll be travelling a bit around and not have access to the Internet.
Here's one of Mom's favourite NORWEGIAN Christmas songs. As a bonus the video features lots of pix of the beautiful scenery of Northern Norway.
We hope you have a nice and peaceful time through the holidays and that the new year bring you nothing but happiness!
Can you believe tomorow is they day before Christmas Eve? Or "little Christmas Eve" as it's referred to as here in Norway.
Mom did some major packing yesterday and I wanted to make sure I wasn't forgotten. With that amount of clothes I was certain she'd be gone for a LONG time. Can you see me?
Yup - that shiny black thing is me!
So then this dialogue: Me: No way you're leaving without me, Mom! Mom: Really? So you need a bath, do you? Me: Bath? Uh.. No.. Lemme see.. Uh.. I'll just go sleep on the couch instead!
Kisses, Bajas (Okay so it was a false alarm.. Laundry day isn't quite packing. But hey - a guy gotta be on his toes at times like these.)
We're getting into the Holday spirit here at the WriggleButtHome. Mom's been tidying up the place a little. You don't really have time for that sort of stuff when you're studying for exams... Two machines of laundry, too, but still more saved up for later. We've had a few of her study buddies over for a little treat after all the studying. They've decorated some more cookies and chatted and have nice hot cups of "gløgg" a kind of mulled wine served with chopped almonds and raisins (Mom only have the almonds in there). Now the entire apartment smells sooo good of Christmasy smells.
Here are a couple of pix of the result:
This one might not be too edible. It's sort of a sugary decoupage. White frosting plus the top layer of a cute paper napkin.
They chatted more than they decorated, so some of the dancing gingerbread men remained naked.
She's even got up a little Christmas tree! She's not all that fond of fake trees or decorating the tree before December 23rd, but apparently all rules are forgotten? (Mom: if we were spending Christmas here I would have had to get a proper tree and follow the rules, but this tiny thing doesn't really feel like a tree, it's more just a decorational object. But I do get to display a few of my very cute ornaments, and it made it a bit more Christmasy here when we had guests over.) She wrapped the entire table in alu-foil, made 3 colors of frosting and white, green and blue colored shredded coconut and some assorted candies to decorate with.
I even got to make an apperance in my Santa suit! Bajas
PS: Mom found the following recipe in case anyone would like to try to make gløgg! http://manitouheights.com/rms/gloegg.shtml From looking at it Mom's guessing it won' taste quite like ours but it might be worth a try if you're looking for a new kind of drink to serve guests. The pineapplejuice, figs and ginger slices are not in any Norwegian recipes I've seen (pineapple juice wasn't something you could get here back in the days so that must be a recent addition, but dried figs were common for Christmas and still are for many) and candied orange peel could be substituded with regular orange or lemon peel which is what you see in most recipes).
We've finally got snow. There's been a little dusting now and then, but the stuff that fell yesterday is still making everything white! Yay! I'm of course out there making all the white stuff yellow. Heheeh...
They've also made a little forest outside just for ME! But Mom refuses me both to go in there and to pee on them alle like I'm supposed to.. Sigh..
Today is Santa Lucia (Saint Lucy)'s day. This is what Wikipedia says:
Saint Lucy's Day or the Feast of St. Lucy (Santa Lucia, Saint Lucia or sometimes Lucia for
short) is the Church feast day dedicated to St. Lucy and is observed on December 13. It retains traditional forms of celebration mainly in Scandinavia, parts of the United States and southern Europe. It is celebrated in Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, Estonia, Norway, Finland, Malta, Italy, Bosnia, Iceland, Bavaria and Croatia. In the United States, people in areas of Minnesota, and other states with Scandinavian roots, continue to celebrate the holiday, often centered around church events. Before the reform of the Gregorian calendar in the 16th century, St. Lucy's Day fell close to the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. In Scandinavia this was also the date in the Gregorian calendar earlier celebrated by the heathen population that was afraid of Lucifer, a celebration that still somewhat lives today through the tradition of Lucevaka – to stay awake on the night between 12th till 13th and guard oneself against being taken by Lucifer lord of darkness by having an all night party. This is still carried out today mostly by the younger population having great parties. When the light then arrives with the morning you are safe again. In traditional celebrations, Saint Lucy comes as a young woman with lights and sweets. It is one of the few saint days observed in Scandinavia. In some forms, a procession is headed by one girl wearing a crown of candles (or lights), while others in the procession hold only a single candle each.
Here's a video from Sweden. Usually this is mainly an event for younger kids, but the song is the same.
Hi guys! I had my final exam (this year) yesterday. I have left the boys behind where they will be properly spoilt and took the train up further north to the city Trondheim to visit. A few relaxing days will be great and then back home to the boys for the last day of pre-Christmas relaxing and giftshopping and so on, too.
Hope you all have a great weekend! I'm alreading reading on my syllabus for next semester. I actually finished Margaret Atwood's Surfacing on the train up here. It's easier to get ahead when some of the books you have to finish are novels rather than text books.
Hi guys! Here's the recipe for Mom's second favourite Christmas snack - you've already gotten the one for chocolate fudge. ;) This one isn't really that unhealthy at all apart from the salt!
Now if one of you could make some and come over? Hehehe.. Today is Mom's second exam - "Phonetics and Intonation"! Tomorrow is Physiology and afterwards Mom's off for the holidays! I'm sure it will mean plenty of couch snuggling for ME!
These days are moving rather quickly, aren't they? I'm not sure Mom is entirely thrilled by the fact, but at least the holidays are close by! She wasn't thrilled when I decided to investigate what was on the table yesterday, either, just 'cause her glass decided to jump onto the floor and multiply itself! Can you believe it? Here she's not making any fun and when I try to compensate she's all pissed off and points the vacuum at me?
Bajas PeeEss: I should expect great things for Christmas, right? With the amount of money she's spent on her own gifts this year...
Hi guys! We're still tired at the WriggleButtPlace.. Tomorrow is the last full day of reading for Mom - two days of exams and then we'll have her all to ourselves! (Oh well - after her weekend trip, anyways!) Wish her luck with the final bit of studying, will you? The other night she dreamt she studied all night - now shouldn't you try to REST during the night? BOL!
Happy Monday, guys! Today we show you a few of our Christmas Cards from previous years. We also want to wish our very special Auntie Anna a happy 25th birthday!
We love you, Auntie! Even when you're being silly...
Hi guys! Mom's been really boring all day spending it at school studying. We think that's unfair since she worked yesterday and will be at school several day this week, too. She's pretending a few weeks off will make it all any better. ;) Mom also saw someone brought at dog to the library the other day - perhaps she could take us all along without protests? Tee hee..
Today's picture is of Mom's gift wrapping from Christmases past! We strongly encourage you all to use wrapping paper that can be either burned or recycled afterwards (unlike regular gift wrapping paper). As you can see both brown paper and newspaper can make for good looking presents with less negative effects on our environment.
Mom's been at work today for the first time since the bad foot business. They're ouchie right now, but we're thinking it will take a day or two to see how much is from lack of use and and how much is in the tendons. She'll be working 50% for a while so no work tomorrow. Which is also good for her studying. She's got "English Phonetics and Intonation" and "Physiology" left. American Litterature was the one she had last week. We know someone also asked what she's studying - and she's studying to be a teacher at levels similar to High School and her subjects will be Biology (major) and English.
We made fun of Mom all day yesterday for missing the typo on yesterday's fudge recipe. BOL! Oh well.. We're thinking you all got it anyways. Just over a week until Mom's exams are over (Thursday and Friday next week) and there's not likely to be much going on here until after that (and after a quickie trip to visit Auntie and the human puppy who was our visitators recently), but after that she'll make some for sure!
Next Friday Mom's got her Physiology exam - both animal and plant physiology and today she found these very cool videos on YouTube. They're probably most fun for you geeky dogs out there, but on the other hand it should be a good way for most to enjoy photosynthesis.
Just looking at this makes Mom drool as much as the Mango. It all begun when she mis-read a recipe and after some perfecting they are just that - perfect!
Chopping them up...
...wrap (we strongly discourage making these kinds of amounts - it was HARD work)..
They made some very nice pressies that year, though! This year she's only making for her own consumption! Hehe...
Also - we have entered our cute butts in JD and Max' cool competition - so why not drop by and VOTE if you haven't already. Also - Hyssing ended up second in the Mr.Cat competition. We're not disappointed with the result, but the cat that won only entered the competition a few days before it closed and wasn't once on top 10 but still won just before midnight. We find this rather fishy. Oh well - he's still cutest kitten in our book!
Mom did okay on her exam yesterday. Thanks for all good wishes! She wrote about 6,5-7 pages on the narrator's role in "A Rose for Emily" Now just over a week until her last two exams! We can't believe how fast this semester went.. She's already planning for spring, and as usual she's adding extra subjects. Sigh.... We thought she'd learned. But oh-no-no... She's going to add TWO extra subjects this time. But they're English subjects not biology/chemistry stuff so hopefully not as hard, at least they've only got about 1/3rd of the lectures (which should scare her since that most likely just means more time to study on her own).
So today is Mom's Am.Lit. exam... We're hoping it turns out okay - but first she should have time for a couple of hours of reading. The exam doesn't start until 2.30PM so you should all be awake and able to cross your fingers for her. Hehehe...
Don't eat the yellow snow! Hehehe...
