Christmas carols year round

Do you belong to those who gladly would sing Christmas carols all year? Here you find me. When I was a choir director for the local choir, I brought forth the music for our Christmas carols from early in the autumn. I heard som grumbling in the bass group …  ‘we know them from before, and people want to listen to the good oldies….’ It belongs to another story how we came to an agreement ….
‘Det lyser i stille grender’ (There is a shine over silent villages’ was written in 1931 by Jakob Sande, the West Norwegian poet. The song came alive in 1948 when the composer Lars Søraas gave it a wonderful melody. I remember my father ‘The village Teacher’ taught us this song i school, and it was the first song to which I found the ‘second melody’…. This song has followed me from my childhood ‘grend’ Stavn in Flå. Far north you find the old beautiful kept old traditional farm ‘Hefta’… underneath the tall spruce clad rocky hillside. 
The song from west and the watercolour painting with its motiv from the east melt together to one of my dearest Christmas cards…. vest og akvarellen frå garden i aust smeltar saman til eitt av mine kjæraste julekort.
With peace
from the mountain
and silent forests
Christmas tones
sound at winter tide……

The history behind a Christmas card

‘Julekveldsvisa’ The carol of Christmas Eve’ has followed many of us since we were children. During my first years as a watercolour painter my motives were for a period special, old houses. From wanderings in the ‘old houses’ street ‘Øyragata’ in Lærdal, my heart felt for one particular house. It stood out as the poet Alf Prøysen’s house in his home village in Ringsaker in east Norway. A small, redpainted house with friendly windows. This house in my mind ‘became’ the house where ‘Matja the midwife’ lives. The Star shone on the roof of her house. The neighbour’s house were included, like a side scene. The house is white with innumerable small windows. Oda and Bjørg Ellinor, two of my grandchildren, are singing as they are walking with christmas presents to the child.  The title of the painting has always been ‘The Midwife Lane’. This was one of my earliest Christmas cards.
Some time later I got to know that in the white house actually the midwife of Lærdal and in the little red house lived the child minder of the Lindstrøm family (the hotel owner nearby)….. 
Yes, that was the first time the Christmas star shone,
and later it has been shining in all the countries of the world,
and whatever happens the star is as great as ever
– you’ll see her over the roof where Matja Midwife lives.

Christmas caroling at the home of the elderly

The village choir – this year like last year – ‘is singing Christmas carols for the old folks.

The village choir – this year like every year – is singing Christmas carols for the old folks. As we stood there singing ‘Oh come, let us follow the star up high’, I was pondering over who ‘the old folks’ are…. I counted eleven old choir singers. Not too long ago they stood beside me in the choir…beautiful voices and their song came from their hearts,  out of joy of singing.  Here they sang together with us and they were still singing from their heart, and they still are young… even a little childlike.. Not too long ago they stood beside me in the choir…beautiful voices and their song came from their hearts, from the joy of singing. Not too long ago they stood beside me in the choir…beautiful voices and their song came from their hearts, from the joy of singing. As Elizabeth so dignified and standing tall put it: ‘It is so good to see that the elderly are with, it is so much more solemn then, and right’….

We are together
on the wandering
in a ‘never-ending row of pilgrims»
and we rejoice in ‘…..the darkness fly
for the light that is amongst us…..’
that sneak onto us…
in the middle of all the misery
sneaking up on us
Old or young ones
does it really matter ….

The Day is turning into night
light after light is being switched off
soon it is going to sleep
– the village
But … look …  every house has got a shining star
over the roof
just like in the carol 
….a good night they need
after all their work in the day
and before important work tomorrow
some titanic work 
like building a tower to heaven
and some
quite down to earth…

All important in the big picture