What matters is that we are gathered in our homes, together on the same frozen and barren earth

The older I get , the stronger I feel it when christmas is approaching. Where I before blew it by sentimentaliteten, and considered the whole of the christmas season as quite superficial and hysterical, I get now the creeps of "Holy Night" and have to blink away tears when the "Northern julesalme" come on.

The whole thing is quite enjoyable on a selvironisk way. At the same time, I think of what makes so many of us feel this fierce attachment to a particular time, with a completely unique traditions.

the Answer is of course that we follow the affiliation. Trygve Hoff writes in "The julesalme" about US, and about OUR reality, and he does it in such a way that the polar night and bad weather get something epic and romantic.

We see suddenly our own toil as a confirmation of the efforts, not as a mangeltilstand. We are small heroes in our own story, and the story is about a culture, a way of life, a strength that is built on cohesion. We are in this together, and we are he!

There is nothing dubious over this feeling. Julefølelsen is not fake, commercialized, hypocritical, or morally questionable. It is an expression of community, a gathering around the cultural camp fire which is built up layer for layer all the way from the time when the Yule was a celebration of the Jolner (Odin), and perhaps even further back.

Traditions has been merkestolper through the generations of life, and we use them to navigate through the year, and to feel secure. We KNOW what christmas is, all we who have grown up with it.

But then there is some that has not grown up with it. Some of us who live here have grown up with quite other traditions, and has been sitting around completely different cultural camp fires.

They have known in the same ownership are expressed in a different language, with different food, and different music. Trygve Hoff has not written Julesalme for them, it has someone else done.

And they have been affected by the war. Of tyranny. Of persecution, torture, rape. The family they celebrated the feast together with. is, perhaps, killed, or simply lost in the suspense. And they have fled through the fire and the smoke and ruins in panic. They have sold everything they had to get space on a boat or car, and they have wandered into the land where everything is different.

They have had to flee, in order to preserve life. And now they are here, and it's christmas.

The luckiest of them get to celebrate christmas together with us, and know maybe in a weak small flame of belonging. They know that they don't have our background, and that they are not "really" are our family.

They see the tears in our eyes when julesalmen going on, and they realize that this is important. They understand the feeling, but not the background!!!

They have not grown up with a father who is pacing in restless anticipation through the living room with the constantly ajar for the kitchen because it soon is lutefisk, as I have, and therefore they are also not a religious relation to just this one julematen. They have not been given skis for christmas when they were five, and vagget around in the living room to the entire family's joy.

They have not placed a christmas card gently along the peishylla to remember family and friends around the Uk and the world. They are here alone, and they have not even our tradition to navigate.

Some believe that these people are a threat. That because you don't eat ribs, have you thought to steal the christmas season. That if you don't send the kid in julegudstjeneste have nothing here to do. That if one keeps on with it you even get tears in my eyes, is not a real Norwegian.

I say that they are wrong. The most important thing is that they actually allow themselves to move of how important ownership is. It is the heart of the christmas season is to see that we, on a very basic show is the same, not different. It doesn't matter if you want to have pinnekjøtt or lutefisk on christmas eve, that one has slightly different traditions.

What matters is that we are gathered in our homes, safely protected from the cold and the dark. Together, on the same frozen and barren earth, with "husan and the mountains and the water and the people that live here in the north".