So, for the first time in my life, I’m not in Oslo and with neither of my parents on December 24th. I am in Molde, with Karianne and her family. It’s a bit weird, but given that all the traditions on how today’s evening have broken down after my grandmother died, I am hoping this will be nice.
Before, as in, when my parents at least lived in the same house, even though they no longer shared a bed, we always celebrated at my grandparents’ place. There was a lot of rituals on how everything was conducted. Those would probably looked weird, silly and arcane to an outsider, but they were how we celebrated. Then, my father moved out and later met Vigdis. (I am in no way sad for this, but it was a deciding factor in how things later developed.) This (obviously) changed how we celebrated and my siblings and I shuttled back and forth between mum and dad.
Since this day is just a regular day if it weren’t for all the traditions on how it is celebrated, this was particularly hard on me. (To be fair, I haven’t discussed it with my siblings, so I can’t tell if it was worse for them than for me, and it’s not particularly important either.) I haven’t looked forward to celebrating for the last three or so years. At all. I have also been a wimp and not really told any of my parents about it either, so they haven’t been able to understand anything.
So, now I am in Molde and it’s nice. I don’t have much of an idea what traditions live in this household, but am eager to find out. And, I have Karianne here, so I’m sure it will work out fine, some way or the other.