CHRISTMAS AT THE NORTH POLE



Picture of the week: Christmas in Longyearbyen.

What a great experience for the family to enjoy this Christmas in Svalbard.  The week leading up to Christmas was full of activity and also some time to relax and of course eat too much.  The week started out in Trondheim finishing up our trip.  I had meetings all day Monday.  The first at a company called Aptomar to learn about an infra-red system that we are getting installed on the ship for our cruise in January.  The infra-red will allow us to image the temperature differences around the ship (up to 8 kilometers away) and allow us to identify and count birds (seals and whales) in the polar darkness.  I think I soaked up the information to operate the system.  I was then off to NTNU for some meetings that lasted the rest of the day, followed by a nice dinner at “2 rooms and a kitchen”.  During my “work day”, Nicole enjoyed the city with Hilda (Geir’s wife), while their oldest son on leave from the Coast Guard went to the local water park with Jason and Anders.   The next morning it was up early to fly back home.  All the flights were on time and we said goodbye the Sun once again.  I was excited to get back and decompress after the hectic schedule over the last three weeks.  It was a beautiful calm clear day when we arrived and it was fun to unpack and relax at home.

Wednesday I took the boys Christmas shopping in town.  It was really busy and looked like everyone had waited until the last minute.  I really wanted to get some last minute items off my “to do list” at work, so Thursday after a slow start, went to UNIS and finished some paper edits.  That night we watched Narnia while we strung popcorn and cranberries for the tree.  Thursday, I went to the airport to pick up the cargo that was returned from Trondheim.  I have never been lucky on those trips.  Even during working hours, nobody is there and no one answers the phone number on the door.  I returned to UNIS and by chance, bumped into one of the staff that had generously just picked up the boxes from the airport for me (evidently 20 minutes before I got there).  Somehow things just work out!  Anders helped me bring them to my office and then walked back home.  Friday I worked at UNIS for 3 to 4 hours to finish another paper draft and sent it off to co-authors for comments.  It was great to get this done and made relaxing for Christmas that much easier.

Our Christmas tree from Trolla with an abundance of presents.

Friday night we went to the Rasmussen’s for Ris-grøt (rice porridge), a traditional dish for dinner the night before Christmas Eve.  Almonds are put in the porridge and whoever is lucky enough to scoop one up gets a surprise.  Jason and I both got one and I won a miniature Porche.  Along with the porridge, we had reindeer and a great salami sausage that we found out afterwards was pork, beef and horse… sorry Black Beauty, Mr. Ed, and Silver!  It started snowing that evening and really felt like the holidays.

Christmas Eve started with some last minute shopping, present wrapping, cooking, and house cleaning. On most of the TV channels, they showed Christmas movies, one after another, so we got sucked into a few of those.  That evening, we went out for a walk around town.  There was no wind, clear and just around freezing.  Christmas Eve is when everyone here celebrates Christmas and opens presents, so there were no cars or people to be found.  It was quiet and felt like we were the only ones there.  We saw two reindeer digging for grass and tried to get that iconic picture of the family with one of them without luck.  With two active and loud boys, it is hard to plan a stealthy approach and choreograph the frame with a skittish animal, but we gave it two admirable efforts.  We opened two presents when we got home, watched a church service live from Trømso, and put the boys to sleep.

Christmas day started later than we thought (about 9:30 am) as the boys slept in.  Opening presents was fun and we were of course thankful for the abundance of gifts that were under our tree from Trolla. After a few hours of relaxing, we went into prep time for the Christmas dinner.  Cleaning the house (again), setting the table, Nicole preparing the food, getting the candles lit, getting dressed and putting on some music.  We had our neighbor Kjersti and the Rasmussen’s over for Christmas dinner.  Nicole had made a traditional turkey dinner and we all had a great time eating, talking and exchanging gifts.  I read this week that Norwegians ranked number one in the world as the happiest people on earth.  While they have much to be thankful for as a country (energy independence, considerable wealth, beautiful country), I have seen a genuine desire in Norwegians to get the most out of life, relish the outdoors, enjoy friends, and cherish family.  These qualities seem to be amplified during the Christmas season when people here take a real time out from their “normal life” to celebrate these things.  We are fortunate to share this experience with them here in Longyearbyen.

Christmas dinner with our neighbor and the Rasmussen's.

The boys playing their new video games after dinner.