Culture Day 2014: Norway

Every summer when Karin and her 

family comes out to visit we do a family 

culture day, where we teach all the kids

about different culture from around the world.  

We have covered Japan, Cambodia, India,

 Switzerland, Prague, Peru, Louisiana/ mardi gras. 

(Click on the links to see all the fun pictures from those culture days)

This year we decided to do:

Norway

Our ancestors are from Norway so it is a really special

country and culture for our family.  And now that Disney 

has set one of their most famous movies, Frozen, in this

beautiful country, we thought it would be fun to teach the 

kids a little this fascinating country.

We began the evening with a 

Smorgasbord dinner.  These types of dinners 

are very common in Norway.  A smorgasbord is a buffet 

that offers a large variety of hot and cold meats, 

salads, cheeses, relishes, smoked and pickled fish and hors d'oeuvres.

We decided to leave out the smoked and pickled fish ... I think it was 

a smart decision.  The kids absolutely loved the buffet

there were so many different fun things to try!

My creative mom set the 

table to look just like the Norwegian flag!

She also used Norwegian candelabras that she 

brought back from one of her Scandinavian trips.

The rest of the evening was divided up 

into different stations my sister Jenny and my 

mom had set up throughout our parents' house.

Our first stop was out on the patio to 

learn about a traditional form of Norwegian 

painting called Rosemaling. 

 Rosemåling is Norwegian for decorative painting

 and is a style of painting on wood that uses 

stylized flower ornamentation, scrollwork, lining and

 geometric elements, often in flowing patterns.  Jenny gave a short

presentation on this beautiful art form, then we all had the chance

to color some Rosemaling ourselves.  The kids loved it!

 I am going to include some of the slides from 

Jenny's presentation about how

Disney really incorporated Norwegian culture 

into their latest blockbuster, it really is so fascinating 

the research their team does on the different places in which their movies are set.

Here are just a couple examples of the rosemaling 

they have in the movie.  But if you look for it you can find 

it throughout the whole film, it's really cool

Next we learned about Viking ships

Andrew spent all day putting together this 

awesome model ship.  Then all the kids had 

the opportunity to make their own ships

out of cardboard boxes.  Unfortunately I didn't 

get and pics of that.

Then we moved on to a station 

where Karin showed us this gorgeous painting 

she had started back in college from a picture from our family 

trip to Norway.  We talked a little bit about day to day life in 

Norway, and some traditional customs.

Another random Frozen tidbit:

The horses in the film are fjord ponies. 

This type of horse is famous for it's 

unusual mane and is found in the mountainous 

regions in Norway.

Our next station was back to the kitchen 

to learn about the beautiful native costumes 

of Norway!  This was really fun to learn about!

Then we all took turns dressing up and having a

good time in our iphone photo booth.

In frozen, Kristof is a Sami, the indigenous 

people of the Scandinavian area.  As you can

see Disney did a good job of dressing him in their 

traditional outfit.

Evie is modeling the Santa Lucia dress and 

headdress.  

Jenny made this dress herself in high school

she even did all the intricate needle point!

Then we headed down to the craft room

to learn about trolls!

Trolls play a huge part in Norse mythology 

and scandinavian folklore.  Jenny read us 

a few stories involving mischievous trolls

then all the kids made their own trolls out of clay,

rocks and moss.  They all turned out so adorable!

We brought these trolls back from our 

family trip to Norway

Our final stop of the night was to have

some of the delicious rice pudding with 

homemade raspberry sauce my dad 

had spent all evening making for us!

It is a Norwegian Christmas tradition to hide an

almond in one of the servings of pudding 

and whoever gets the almond is blessed with

good luck for the whole new year.

Ben was the lucky one got the almond

and good luck for the rest of the year!

Thomas doing my hair while 

we ate our dessert

Then we ended the night with

a showing of frozen for all the littles.

Hopefully that movies means more to them now!

One last cool fact about 

the movie, even though Jenny

shared a lot more with us,

the church where Elsa's coronation

takes place, is modeled after a real church in Norway. 

A big, big thank you to 

my sister Jenny and my mom

for putting this whole evening together!

It was so much fun and we all learned SO much

about the amazing country of Norway!