Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“It’s a flatbread made from potatoes, similar to a crepe. My grandmother used to make it, and I continued the tradition.” There were so many holiday mornings where I would join my grandma in the cold kitchen, the fire slowly heating up the room, and help her get started on the lefse. I would roll the sticky dough between my hands into little balls, and she would make them flat and thin with the rolling pin.
“That sounds good. I’ll have to try it.”
Sigrid gives her a dry look. “Is that a hint for me to add it to the Christmas menu?”
Ella laughs. “I am sure you have enough on your plate.”
“I know how to make it,” I tell Ella. “It’s not hard to make, but it does take a little time.”
“Another time,” Ella says with a dismissive wave. “Your hands are full with the boys. Speaking of, I’m going to start prepping for tomorrow. Figure out what we’re going to wear to church. Do you need a dress?”
I give her an amused look. “Do you really think anything of yours will fit me? Don’t worry, I have some church-appropriate pieces.”
“Okay, well, if you need a handbag or something, let me know,” she says, putting Tor in his chair and leaving the kitchen.
“Do we have to go to church?” Bjorn asks, climbing onto a seat at the table beside his brother.
“You do,” I tell him as I grab the bowl of cookie dough and stick a spatula in it, giving it a stir. “It’s a special time of year.”
“And Santa is watching,” Sigrid adds over her shoulder as the turnips roll across the counter.
“Are you coming?” Bjorn asks me.
I nod. “I am. Going to church on Christmas Eve is my tradition too. I used to go with my grandmother to the tiny church we had in our village.”
“What other traditions do you have?” Bjorn asks. I’m actually touched that he’s asking me questions.
“For Christmas, well, let’s see,” I muse, taking a baking sheet and ripping it off before putting it on the table. “Cookies, of course.” I place the bowl of dough in front of him. “Now, if you promise not to eat it—that goes for you too, Tor—then you can help make the cookies. Just take a little bit like this and roll it in your hands and press it into the sheet like so.” I demonstrate while I tell him, “Actually, my grandmother and I started this tradition the year after…”
I trail off, not sure how much of my past to tell the kids. But even Sigrid is looking over her shoulder for me to continue, and I remind myself that sometimes kids can handle death more maturely than adults do.
“When I was eight, my parents died,” I say.
Bjorn’s eyes go round. “How did they die?”
“They went to a party in another town, and I had stayed with my grandmother. On the way back a landslide came down the mountain and buried them.”
Tor and Sigrid are listening intently now too.
“That’s awful,” Sigrid says.
“It was,” I say. I don’t talk about it often, and even though it was so long ago, it doesn’t stop me from getting a lump in my throat. “The first Christmas after they died, it was so hard. It felt wrong to celebrate it without them. So my grandmother said we should go and buy them gifts anyway. We went to Trondheim together to the department store. I picked out a mug I thought my mother would like, and a tie for my father, and we had them wrapped up. We put them under the tree.”
“Did you open them?” Bjorn asks.
I nod. “We opened them for our parents, just as we opened the other gifts we got from each other and friends. Then we put them in a box in a room downstairs. It’s filled with presents.”
“That is just lovely,” Sigrid says with a sniff.
When I look over at her, her back is to me, and she’s trying to hide her tears in the turnips.
“Are you getting them presents this year?” Bjorn asks as he mashes the dough onto the baking sheet.
I nod. “They’re in my room. I already picked them out. I got my mother a candle and my father some pipe tobacco. I got him a pipe last year, so…”
“They must have been nice people,” Bjorn says thoughtfully.
I give him a quick smile. “They had many friends,” I say. That’s the most I can say. They were nice to everyone, and that included me, but that’s pretty much where it stopped. They tolerated me, were polite to me, but in general didn’t want to have much to do with me. Which makes their death all the more complicated.
“It’s a hard time of year,” Sigrid says, “for so many people.”
“Oooh, what are you making?” Lady Jane says as she steps into the kitchen. “Cookies!”