Norwegian Learning Community and Resource

Chistmas Calenders  

It was only recently I was made aware that not every culture that celebrates Christmas has the same tradition when it comes to this phenomenon, namely the Christmas calendars. Just the meaning of the word may vary quite a lot – In Norway it means either a phsycal calender that you open every morning, or type you see on TV every evening, from 1st until 24th of December. 

Here are the most common types of Christmas calendars in Norway:  

Flaxkalender – Luck calender 

So, even though casinos are forbidden in Norway, most people do a little bit of gambling in December. If someone gifts you a “Flaxkalender”, you receive a card where you can scape of a layer for each day of December. Underneath you will find a symbol, and if you acquire the correct amount of a certain symbol, you can win up to a million Norwegian kroners. Still, most of the people winning anything at all on the flaxkalender gets around 30 kroner, around 3 euros.  

Gavekalender – Present calendar 

As a child, the most common calendar is the one where you get a small present every day. The content of the presents may vary (mainly on the socio-economic condition of your parents). Soap bubbles, hair ties, or pieces of a jigsaw are all things you might encounter in your gavekalender.  

Sjokoladekalender - Chocolate calendar 

One might ask if starting every day by eating candy is a good idea. At least the chocolate calendar only exist one month of the year. The chocolate calendars come in a lot of varieties, and even exclusive brands usually have their own. If you are not much into chocolate, there are similar products with other types of candies. For example, the Scandinavian favorite: licorice. 

TV-series 

In Norway there are a lot of TV shows that comes in the form of a Christmas calendar. This entails viewing an episode of around 20-30 minutes, and sometimes just a 10-minute snippet, every evening for 24 evenings in a row. All of these series naturally have Christmas as a central topic, but other than that, there are varieties of subgenres: 

• Chistmas Crime: A murder has taken place in a cabin in the mountains. Will they be able to find the murderer before Christmas eve? You will find out if you watch all the episodes of Jul i Blodfjell. 

• Christmas Mocumentary: Some of Norway’s most iconic comedians making fun of reality TV. The iconic first season of Nissene på loven from 2001 is still available.  

• Chistmas Reality:   There is also real reality TV as a Christmas calendar. In this one, Norwegian B-celebrities are competing on being the most “chistmassy” celebrity.  The least chistmassy person in each episode will be sent away, until there is only one, presumably ultra christmassy celebraty, left on the 24th of December.  

• Christmas Adventure: The classic genre, filled with magic, princesses and crooks. And of course, lots and lots of santas.  Amalies Jul, Jul i Blåfjell, Jul i skomakergata and The Julekalender are all series with children as their main target group, and most people growing up in Norway will have a close and nostalgic relationship to one or more of these.