Although the old pendulum clock marked the morning hour with seven deep-throated bongs, the darkness clung reluctantly. After all, it was late in December and, furthermore, the skies were heavy with impending snow.

Karine sighed as she bundled herself into her heavy outer skirt, drew on a pair of her son's discarded boots and wound her large, diagonally folded shawl over her head, crossed the end over her chest and tied them behind her. She really hated these cold, dark mornings, but the animals must be fed and watered, the cows milked and the stable cleaned.

She placed a heavy piece of wood into the firebox of the cook stove to keep the fire burning while she was out, lit the lantern and was about to reach for her mittens when a soft, little voice pleaded, "Mama, can't I go with you?"

Karine turned where her three-year-old daughter stood in the doorway leading to the inner room and answered regretfully but firmly, "No Kaia, dear, it's too cold outside and the snow is too deep for your little legs. Don't you want to go back to your cozy bed?"

"No Mama, I want to stand on my box."

Karine considered. She could be stern and order her child back to bed, but it was hard to be strict with this adorable child, her only companion this lonely winter. "All right," she conceded. "I'll get the box, but you must put on your stockings and your lugga because the floor is cold. I’ll wrap a shawl around you."

The child was quick to pull on her woolen stockings and the thick lugga, or slippers, her father had constructed from an old sheepskin vest. Karine brought the box, an ordinary wooden crate that made a little platform for Kaia when it was turned bottom side up and placed under the kitchen window. From there, Kaia could watch her mother’s comings and goings in the yard.

Hastily, Karine spread a piece of lefse with butter and a sprinkle of sugar, and rolled it up to fit into Kaia’s hand. That, together with a glass of milk, placed in the windowsill, would be breakfast enough for the child as she waited alone in the gloomy kitchen for her mother’s return.

Outside equipped with lantern and milk pail, Karine studied the brooding sky. Snow would soon begin to fall. She must do all she could to prepare. How she longed for the presence of her strong husband, Per, and her sturdy 16-year-old son, Peder. Karine was not the uncomplaining, hardy type. She was a scant five feet tall, small-boned and dainty. Born in southern Norway, she had been accustomed to a mild climate surrounded by the beauties of fjords and mountains, lush gardens and deep forests. But she knew Norway offered little to a young son in a large family and accepted Per’s need to go to America where land was free to homesteaders. First, they had tried the prairies of Dakota Territory. The incessant winds, the bleak treeless expanse and the savage climate had driven them to try again in Minnesota. Now Per made plans for a home that would satisfy all their cravings for the beauty of growing things. They would have flowers, trees, a spacious house and a decent barn for their animals, he promised.

The beginnings of gardens and tree plantings were accomplished with no great expense but lumber for the buildings was beyond their means. Then they learned of a sawmill about 30 miles to the north, where a stand of good timber was being felled and sawed into lumber by a group of homesteaders who were likewise planning to build on their land. The family decided to sacrifice a winter of their lives together to the lumber project.

But who would do the chores? Karine decided she could manage. After all, how much work could two cows and some 50 chickens be? Now after three months, she knew all about hard work, loneliness and fear. Pitting what strength she had against tasks Per and Peder usually accomplished with ease made each day a harsh, physical contest. But lack of adult companionship and her fears for the well-being of Kaia were hardest to endure. Fortunately, Christmas was coming and her men would soon return.

She entered the friendly warmth of the stable and hung up her lantern. The cows, Daisy and Rosa, mooed appreciatively when she greeted them by name and proceeded to milk them. To her, milking was restful and nearly automatic so she used the time to plan for Christmas.

In Norway, they would be cooking and baking, decorating the house with spicy, pungent balsam and cedar boughs, and getting everyone’s festival clothes ready for that important church service and other social events. Perhaps julebukker would come in costumes and masks to beg for treats.

But here in this raw, new country, there were no church, no socializing neighbors, none of the special food treats and no evergreen boughs to decorate and scent the house.

With the milking completed, Karine carefully carried the fresh milk back to the house. A grudging daylight allowed her to extinguish the lantern; kerosene was a "town" purchase and had to be rationed carefully. Then she strained the milk and poured it into shallow pans in the cool lean-to. Later she would skim the cream and, when enough had accumulated, churn into butter.

Next came the worst ordeal of the day: Somehow the cows must be watered and fed. To encourage the cows to drink more water and thus produce more milk, each morning Karine hated a bucket of water and mixed it with cold well water to make a warm drink that the cows gulped greedily.

The water had to be dipped from their hand-dug well with a bucket attached to a rope. It was a spring-fed well and they were lucky to have it. Some day they would have a pump but for now this was an arduous task dangerous too since any spilled water immediately froze to become treacherous ice. Each day she was afraid. Each day she grimly drew up bucket after bucket of icy water.

The next task was replenishing the cows’ supply of hay. There was a stack nearby, but now it was snow crusted and frozen. Wielding the yard-long hay knife, which looked absurdly like a jagged-edged sword, Karine hacked off chunks of hay, and with a large hay fork, carried the chunks into the stable to fill the mangers. Today, she added extra in case the brooding weather brought on a blizzard that would make this task impossible.

Chicken chores were easier to accomplish She gave them grain from the feed box and put water in their troughs, and then she found five fresh eggs. Good! Kaia could have an egg for her dinner and there would still be eggs for Christmas baking.

Last of all was the odious task of scraping manure from the stalls, tossing the mess out the pasture door and replacing it with fresh straw for bedding. Then she was done.

Throughout her strenuous activities, she planned the best Christmas she could manage. Once they had attended a Christmas program in a community hall where a Christmas tree, decorated with hand-carved ornaments and tiny glowing candles, had been the main attraction. They were entranced.

How wonderful if they could have a Christmas tree! She planned how she and Kaia would make decorations. Wouldn’t Peer’s and Peder’s eyes pop when they walked in! Impossible, of course, but she couldn’t resist wading through the snow to visit five evergreen seedlings, their spiky tips barely protruding from the snow. Someday they would be tall, dense and green among the leafless ash, elm and box elders in the shelter grove. She recalled they day she had traded her home churned butter for the seedlings when she saw them in the trader’s wagon.

Back in the house, she watched Kaia devour her boiled egg, while she made a meal from warmed-up pea soup. Now it was time for the Christmas baking of lefse and whatever sweets she could concoct from her limited supplies.

Tender, brown-freckled lefse was made by adding flour and cream to cold mashed potatoes, rolling out chunks of this dough into paper-thin circles and baking them on top of the stove. Mounted on her box, Kaia was in charge of piercing the blisters with a fork while the lefse baked.

Thanks to her faithful hens, Karine could now bake the egg-rich fattigmann bakkels, or poor man’s cookies. The diamond-shaped morsels were deep-fried in Karine’s home-rendered lard. Last of all, she baked molasses- and spice-flavored cookies that Kaia loved. As Karine cut out the traditional hearts and stars, Kaia made her own shapes that vaguely resembled animals.

The snow began to fall thickly in the afternoon. Karine brought in more wood and an extra bucket of water. She filled the fuel containers on the lamp and lantern and trimmed the wicks while there was still light.

Kaia again moved her box to watch her mother’s lantern lights as it flitted about at chore time. "Like a firefly," the child said, laughing. Karine was glad she had carried in the extra hay that morning. It was difficult enough to transport milk pail and lantern back to the house guided by the small glow of lamplight from the window. That was her worst fear: that someday she would be caught in a blizzard and, disoriented in the dimensionless cocoon of snow, freeze to death while her child cried for her mother in a rapidly chilling house. It could happen. It had happened to others.

Still, the days sped swiftly and then it was Christmas Eve. Now all that mother and daughter could do was wonder when the men would arrive. After the chores were done, Karine placed a pork roast in the oven. Maybe, next year, they could have lutefisk. However, the roast would make splendid gravy for the mashed potatoes. The rutbagas that were still firm would be tasty mashed with butter and pepper, and for dessert, she would serve a rice-and-raisin pudding, topped with cold, thick cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Washed and dressed in their best, the two settled down to wait. That was hard for Kaia until her mother read the Christmas story from the Bible and helped her sing the Norwegian children’s Christmas hymn, "Jeg er s} glad hver julekveld" ("I am so glad each Christmas Eve"), but through it all they listened.

There! At last they heard the sleigh bells. Careless for once of wasted heat, Karine threw open the door. Yes, it was Per on the heavily loaded first sleigh and Peder on the second, equally loaded with the precious lumber. But what was that? High on the first load rode a perfect Christmas tree!

Found at: Christmas in Norway