How do you celebrate holidays?
Note: Nearly every holiday in my family/our home country of Norway.
First there is 6th of February, Samefolkets dag in Norwegian language. It’s a special day for the Sámi and in my region we celebrate in public with wearing traditional clothing like gákti/samekofte of our particular ancestors location like the Kautokeino gákti, Lule Sámi or Sea Sámi among several other types and regions. I don’t have one yet, but I’m going to choose which and get one made from my measurements and the associated silver and other important parts of the traditional dress and modern features.
Then 16th of March, the Kven people’s day. I am strongly Kven ethnicity and culture so we celebrate with family and the wider groups local Kven community. I have a Kven costume but I was 17 years old and very thin back then so I cannot wear it anymore. They are expensive because it’s such high quality clothing and hand made from experienced persons, just like with the different types of Sámi gákti.
Easter is important to us, in my family we stay at our mountain cabin for several days when every grocery stores are closed and we enjoy being outside during day and playing board games at night. Eating Kvikk lunsj chocolate and oranges, warm dinner like reindeer based food and it’s very family oriented activities plus skiing across the frozen lake with the fellow cabin staying families.
So comes 17th of May, the National Day of Norway. We celebrate big time with several different ways, including parade (tog) wearing our traditional clothing like a Norwegian bunad or other culture like as mentioned before Sámi gákti and Kven costume. In addition many wear non-traditional clothing with special occations features.
Sankthans/Midsummer is also celebrated in Norway, but quite different from the Swedish type celebration. We have bonfire events and community activities like bbq or grilling outside.
My birthday is celebrated with family in the form of eating wonderful cakes together and some gifts. I also have my own way of giving myself a gift like a couple cans of alcohol-containing cider and energy drinks while listening to music at home.
Halloween I listen to dark music at home or we sometimes have party with friends sometimes dress in kind of supernatural themes.
Christmas and New Years Eve are during the darkest time of year, in the Arctic region we have polar nights and the sun doesn’t rise for over a month. We get together with family members big celebration with Christmas Eve dinner including pork belly/ribbe and sausages among others type. The presents gifts are another big main feature of this yearly event. It takes several hours and we love sometimes being with the large group of close family. New Years Eve is also special, we eat together and often at Midnight go outside with fireworks like many celebrate with. Many adults drink a lot on this night, so some are struggling with hangover on 1st of January.
Thank you for reading my long yearly celebration of different Northern holidays. Have a great day ❤
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