Opening of the Christmas Season

Veronica and Barbara sings with Bjarkøy Children's Choir. This is from Bjarkøy Church during the first Sunday of Advent mass. The Choir went to the local nursing home and participated in the Christmas Tree lighting afterwards.

This is the conductor, Grethe Pedersen. She also plays the baryton on various occations. Music is very prominent in this small community. Grethe is also Barbara's teacher.

The Christmas Tree is lit and everyone celebrated with walking around the tree and singing Christmas Carols, ending with "Deilig er Jorden" (The Earth is Beautiful), which is s traditional German folk song translated to Norwegian. It has become a very loved Christmas Hymn in Norway.

After singing, the local organizers served rolls, hot chocolate and 'gløgg', which is a traditional hot drink made of juice, almonds, raisins and spices. 

Out picking pine cones for preparations for Christmas Craft Day

On our way to find pines cones, we found evidence of moose ahead. We didn't see the moose, but the tracks it left were quite visible! An adult moose eats  up to 40 lbs of twigs and bark per day. See www.Wikipedia/org/wiki/moose

For more information on moose (the European moose is called Elk in Wikipedia).

There are lots of problems with moose being run over by cars and trains in Norway. Just in our country up to 30 are killed by cars every day. When the first snow falls, the problem is biggest.

After finding lots of pine cones, we went to the beach to look at the waves. Very cold, but so much fun!

You can find all kinds of treasures at the beach in the winter time. This is the remnants of a harbour porpoise. They are fairly common in the waters along the coast of Norway. Our trip became a science class. Very interesting. Check out facts about this kind of porpoise in Wikipedia.

Making Moose Meatballs at Kirsten's house

We picked up some moose meat, brought it home and prepared it for making ground meat. It took a while to cut off fat, bones and such, but we finally finished.

We used our mother's old crank grinders and it worked fine.

Kirsten got her pile of meatballs made this day. I spent a couple days afterwards to make mine.

Looks good and it tastes good!