Visit at St. Paul's school

Christmas is coming up (just in case someone had missed that point). Thursday last week, the Pulse team visited Year 6 at St. Paul´s school with a “Christmas special”. As the whole team are from Norway, we wanted to say something about how we celebrate Christmas there. Is it very different?

Well, the biggest difference is that Norwegians celebrate Christmas Eve (that is having a big meal, going to Church and opening presents), and that most families in Norway would wait to put up the Christmas decorations until some time between 20^th and 23^rd December.

Another thing that is typical for Christmas in Norway is home made decorations and snacks. The children at St. Paul´s school got to try out examples of this. They made Christmas baskets which go on the Christmas tree, and made Marzipan figures from home made marzipan. They also got to taste Norwegian Waffles, which are not very Christmassy, just really, really good (anyone can have them at The Bus on Thursdays from time to time).

But despite small differences, and the bizarre tradition of walking around the Christmas tree (a tradition no-one in the team could explain...), there is one important thing we have in common: The reason for the whole thing.

The birth of Jesus Christ is the reason for why we celebrate Christmas. Christmas marks the beginning of God´s solution for how we can have contact with him. For that solution, we can only sing God´s praises together with the angels: Glory to God in the heavenly heights, 
Peace to all men and women on earth who please him.(Luke 2:14)