Sankthansaften

The Sun “turned” yesterday. That’s big news in Norway. It means that the days will no longer be getting longer, and tonight will be the longest night of the year. The march toward winter has begun again (even before summer fully arrives) as the days grow shorter and darker. This day is not red on the calendar, meaning no one gets the day off, but it comes with all kinds of traditions and activities just the same. The name itself – Sankthansaften- is pretty funny. It means Saint John’s Eve. No one I asked knew why it was called that so I had to investigate it myself. Summer solstice is one of the biggest pagan holidays of the year and since long ago when the good Christians didn’t want to miss out on all the fun, they decided to make the day have some kind of Christian meaning to it so they celebrated the birthday of John the Baptist. John was a cousin to Jesus and born six months before him so it was as good a “cause” as any to take the place of the pagan traditions. “John” in Norwegian is “Johan” which was then shortened to “Han” and it's the "eve" since it’s the day before the actual “birthday” (which is when all things are celebrated in Norway because they can’t wait for the real thing), today is called Sankt (Saint) Hans (Johns) Aften (Eve). It was also Kaleb’s last day of school (mine too, but I didn’t go). I sent a camera to school with Kaleb in hopes he would try to capture memories and friends and moments. I wasn’t disappointed. He can trump me with that shutter finger. He took hundreds of pictures and videos, so hopefully today won’t soon be forgotten.

I was hoping to spend some time with Kaleb after school and do all the traditional family things on Sankthansaften. Everyone heads down to the beach to watch the huge bonfires burning along the shore. The pagan traditions are long gone so now instead of making human sacrifices, they “sacrifice” hot dogs and marshmallows and then eat them. The little kids compete in a costume contest after they march through the streets, so it looks like Halloween as they are all dressed up in the same kinds of cute costumes we use in America. It’s also traditional to eat Rømmegrøt today (a porridge made of cream that tastes REALLY good). Many places with huge bonfires sell bowls of Rømmegrøt or hotdogs at little impromptu concession stands. Families hang out at the beach for hours while a few self appointed strong men keep heaving pallets on the fire. Most of the fires are quite the construction project. The one closest to the heart of the city is over a hundred feet tall – built entirely of pallets. Sometimes they set some effigy person up on top kind of like “Burning Man” in Nevada and they watch the person burn up in the flames. It’s a little gruesome but with all the little kids running around dressed up so cute, it’s hard to take it too serious.

Kaleb asked to go home with his friend Toben after school. We said we’d pick him up and take him to the beach later on. He called Kory to ask if we could just meet up at the beach. Kory said it was no problem but he would miss out on the invitation to eat Rømmegrøt over at Odd and Turid’s. He could have cared less. After our bellies were full, Odd, Turid, Hege and Kory and I headed down to the beach – a few miles walk from their house. Just as we got to the beach Kaleb called and asked where we were. When we told him, it was then he realized, as did Kory, there was more than one huge fire at the beach tonight. He was across town at another beach watching another fire with Toben’s family and we didn’t have the car with us to go get him. So we ended up being separated the entire evening. I was a little sad about that. Turid said I had “separation angst” and I just need to get used to it because from now on, his desire will be to hang out with his friends more than us anyway. I was still sad. I called him and asked him to take more pictures, and he was happy to oblige (see photo). Then he asked if he could spend the night with Toben so I saw him a total of five minutes today as I dropped off some clean underwear and his toothbrush. Kory and I then hung out at Odd’s house all evening which was a nice break from the packing we did all day. They lit a fire in their yard and all the neighbors came over and sat around, drinking wine and eating a little food and swatting mosquitoes until the skies turned red around midnight from all the fires burning in the area. It’s quite the tradition. The sun will be up again by 2am and darkness never falls.

As sad as I am we are leaving, today I was thankful. A woman from the Aalesund Kommune came around with some people from Germany. They will be the new care takers of The Sinking Houses when we leave on Friday. They are going to live in our house just during the construction phase of the work that is planned. They will be tearing down the garages (we couldn’t have survived without them), and tearing up all the yard and gravel and setting more poles under the houses. It will be a dreadful place to live in a few weeks so I’m glad it’s them living here and not me. Once again I’m completely overwhelmed with God’s timing. Hallelujah we are leaving on Friday!