Santhansaften

Kaleb went to his pal Daniel’s house yesterday after we left on our road trip, and decided just to spend the night there, which was a good thing.  He came home early this afternoon so we had a little time with him before he then took off to spend the night at Andre’s house again.  He’s maximizing his time with friends before we head back home next week, but he’s also starting to talk about the friend’s back home and how much he misses them, so he’s preparing for the transition, which is good.  I wish I could do that.  I just get profoundly sad when I think about leaving here.

We all slept in until ten this morning, which meant a late start to the day.  As it turned out, it didn’t matter much because no one had a desire to go anywhere or do anything.  We just hung out at home and unpacked all our treasures from yesterday’s big shopping spree and hung out at home while the rain came down outside on this day of great celebration in Norway.

The summer solstice (June 21) was a huge pagan event in Norway a thousand years ago, with bon fires and often people being burned at the stake.  Once Christianity got introduced, the church created their own celebrations and holidays that coincidentally happened a few days after the pagan ones.  They reasoned that the now Christians would be preparing for their own festivities and wouldn’t have time to participate in the pagan ones.  So, since the Bible says John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, was born six months before Jesus was born, they decided that tomorrow, June 24^th, they should celebrate John’s birthday.  They’d already picked December 25^th (coincidentally a few days after the winter solstice) to be Jesus’ birthday.  (I was shocked when I first learned that the whole world does not celebrate Jesus’ birthday on December 25^th.  Many other countries have His birthday up to a month later.)

Like all good holidays, the Norwegians can’t wait to celebrate them so they do all their festivities the night before.  Today is called “Santhansaften” – Saint John’s Eve – meaning the night before Saint John’s birthday.   The weird thing is though, in order to celebrate his birthday, they do some of the things the pagans did for the summer solstice celebration, but they do it in honor of John.  Weird, but true.  They’ve even steered way off course and some modern fires now burn dummies, so it looks like people are getting burned at the stake.  Even weirder.  But this is such a long standing celebratory day that traditions that must be upheld, so families gather down by the shore where they burn piles and pallets of wood that have been building up over the last few months.  Kids play games and families roast hot dogs and marshmallows and stand around this huge fire (which honestly, is hard to stand within a hundred feet of), and they call it a good time. 

Cousin Odd had planned his own little outdoor party tonight that we were going to attend, but it got rained out.  Kaleb wanted to go down to see one of the local fires so the three of us donned our rain gear and headed out.  I guess if it wouldn’t have been raining, it would have been a better time, but we did run into a few people we know so we chatted with them.  Once the fire died down, we left.

We took Kaleb over to Andre’s then stopped by Odd and Turid’s anyway, just to say hi.  Turid was making Rommegrot, so we stuck around for a little “kveld’s mat” (night food) with them and watched a recap of the Hurtigruten six day tour on the TV.  It almost made me cry to see some of the footage.  It was so beautiful.  I need to buy that DVD.  The locals papers are still writing about the media sensation that program was and that Aalesund didn’t do a darn thing to welcome that ship.  The mayor of our town basically said he was asleep at the wheel and he took blame for it.  Some are calling for his resignation because of it, as Aalesund is now the talk of the country for their lack of enthusiasm over this event and they had a chance to show off their local talents and beauty, but didn’t.  Norwegian pride is a funny thing.

So that was our “at home” kinda day and we are now counting down the hours until we are on a plane heading back to America.  I can’t think about it or I might cry.

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!