Month: December 2017 (page 2 of 2)

It’s Beginning to…

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our little cottage. The candles are lit, the decorations are hung, Christmas music is playing and my little lady’s risengrød is almost ready for the Nisse.

Risengrød is Danish for “rice pudding”. Eating rice pudding as part of your Christmas meal and making a bowl as a gift for your Nisse is a Danish tradition. My friend R.’s sister lives in Denmark and around this time of year we would always talk about leaving out our little bowls of risengrød for the Nisse.  I think R. might have been a pixie himself, there was always a twinkle in his eyes.

You want to keep your Nisse happy you see, especially at this time of year, or they’ll play all kinds of little jokes on you. Nisse love to tease! Our Nisse is usually very well behaved, but I know he’s been up to some kind of magic in the cottage lately. I heard laughing the other morning and came down to find that he had been feasting on a bowl of Christmas candy I had set out. A pile of foil wrappers littered the floor and a little trail of chocolate crumbs was leading away from it.

I’ve been very lucky this year because my little lady is making us a big patch of risengrød to put up in the attic for him. I prefer keeping him happy as I don’t want him to get up to too much mischief! 

Happy St. Nicholas Day

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

I know I’ve written about it in this space before, but this was always one of my favourite days at school. We’d slip off one shoe and place it in the hallway and then scramble back to our desks. Our classroom door would close and try as hard as we might to concentrate, we were all straining our ears for the sound of jingle bells.

Eventually you could hear the far off tinkle, twinkle of them and they got closer and closer and closer and then silence. We could hear rustling and a jolly laugh and then the bells would start tinkling, twinkling again and the merry sound would slowly disappear.

Once we got the all clear, we jumped out from behind our desks and into the hallway where all our shoes were lined up. Tucked inside was a fat little orange, a piece of chocolate or a candy cane and a little domed plastic snow globe with either the nativity or a winter scene inside.

It was a day that held magic. I hope today holds magic for you!

{Image of a Ukrainian Christmas Stamp FOUND}

The First

Not only did we usher in the first day of December today, with a few morning snow flurries, I might add, but the beginning of Advent has also arrived.

I was so excited to see what was behind our little paper window this morning! Mr. Michie carefully pulled it back and our miniature scene today was of a boy pulling a sled over a frozen pond.

I adore paper Advent calendars. They bring me back to my childhood and all the little glitter covered paper calendars my Nana would give us to celebrate the season with. Happiness is…