Christmas in Norway
[1] The term jul is common throughout Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, Scotland and the Faroe Islands.
Whereas the start of jul proper is announced by the chiming of church bells throughout the country in the afternoon of 24 December, it is more accurate to describe the season as an eight-week event.
This might be due to the old Germanic custom of counting time in nights, not days (e.g. fortnight), as it holds for other holidays like Midsummer Eve (Jonsok, lit.
Like the cookies traditionally left for Santa Claus today, it was customary to leave a bowl of rice porridge with butter for the Jul spirit in gratitude.
Gifts are brought by Julenissen ('Christmas Hob' or 'the Christmas Wight', who today appears identical to Santa Claus).
Remnants of customs from the older agrarian society include decoration with boughs of green from spruce or fir, e.g. on the doormat, and a sheaf of wheat (julenek) hung outside.
Other traditional foods are eaten at første juledags frokost, a Christmas Day luncheon where the household serves all available delicacies in a grand buffet.
Families might serve several kinds of meat such as ham, fenalår (leg of lamb), cooked cured leg of lamb, pickled pigs' trotters, head cheese, mutton roll, pork roll, or ox tongue; and several kinds of fish such as smoked salmon, gravlax, rakfisk, and pickled herring.
Although originating in Sweden, strawberry-flavoured marshmallow Santa Claus candy called "juleskum" is also commonly eaten in Norway.
On Christmas Eve, many families eat risengrynsgrøt, a type of rice porridge that includes a single almond, scalded of its skin to leave it white.
Julebord is a holiday banquet, often in the form of a buffet, at which is served traditional Christmas foods and alcoholic beverages.
As times have changed since 1000 CE, the labor-intensive tradition of serving julebord at home is vanishing; the custom is moving out of private life to become an end-of-the year corporate social gathering, usually at a restaurant or a rented facility with ordered catering.
It is common to eat rice porridge for lunch, and dinner is usually at 5 p.m., when the church bells ring to symbolize the beginning of the main holiday.
After dinner and dessert (often leftover rice porridge mixed with whipped cream, called riskrem, served with a red berry sauce), the gifts are opened.
[citation needed] All hunting, but not fishing, is prohibited on these days; during julefred ("Christmas Peace") there is a closed season on all wild animals.
On December 26, it is fairly common to invite close friends over to help eat up what is left of the food from Christmas Eve.
Today it is commonly known as a goat figurine made out of straw, created in the beginning of December often used as a Christmas ornament.
