{"id":1655,"date":"2013-12-30T10:38:21","date_gmt":"2013-12-30T10:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/?p=1655"},"modified":"2013-12-30T10:38:21","modified_gmt":"2013-12-30T10:38:21","slug":"happy-romjul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/happy-romjul\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Romjul"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Christmas<\/a>Norwegians just can\u2019t get enough of jula<\/strong> (\u201dthe christmas\u201d). When the whole family has received their gaver<\/strong> (gifts) on julekvelden<\/strong> (Christmas Eve, December 24th), there is still f\u00f8rste og andre juledag<\/strong> (1st and 2nd day of Christmas, December 25th and 26th), a time for eating and visiting friends. (Hva fikk du i julegave i \u00e5r?<\/strong> What did you get for Christmas this year?)<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t panick, it isn\u2019t over yet! \ud83d\ude42
\nTo stretch it just a little bit further, Norwegians invented romjula<\/strong> [ROMyoolah]. In modern Norwegian rom<\/strong> means \u201droom\u201d or \u201dspace\u201d, and although I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s the original meaning of the concept, it fits the idea pretty well: Romjula<\/strong> is the \u201dspace\u201d between jul<\/strong> and nytt\u00e5r<\/strong> (New Year, January 1st).<\/p>\n

In romjula<\/strong>, the social activities of the Christmas days go on. A number of people, however, have to jobbe<\/strong> [YOBBeh] (work). With weekends and everything, the arbeidsdager<\/strong> (working days) of romjula<\/strong> are usually quite few. In a way, it\u2019s like a second juleferie<\/strong> (Christmas holiday). Many people, including teachers and students, don\u2019t have any duties in romjula<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Romjula<\/strong> is the ideal time to bytte gavene dine<\/strong> (change your gifts). Got the same Norwegian course from two different family members? Off to the shop you go \u2013 but remember byttelappen<\/strong> (\u201dthe exchange note\u201d, a special kind of receipt with a deadline for changing the item in the store where it was bought!) A lot of butikker<\/strong> (shops) even have a romjulssalg<\/strong> (romjul sale) to tidy up their shelves after Christmas, so ideally you should have a time-machine when shopping julegaver<\/strong> in Norway!<\/p>\n

Formerly, romjula<\/strong> ended on trettendedagen<\/strong> (\u201dthe thirteenth day\u201d after Christmas Eve, January 6th). That is still the day when many Norwegians will scrap their Christmas tree. Let\u2019s give the last word to the late poet-songwriter Alf Pr\u00f8ysen, who\u2019s still loved and sung:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

En skulle v\u00f8ri fire \u00e5r i romjul <\/strong><\/em>
\nda julelysa brente dagen lang <\/strong><\/em>
\nog v\u00e6la var et hus med fire vegger, <\/strong><\/em>
\nder saligheta var et bessmorfang.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Standard bokm\u00e5l:<\/p>\n

En skulle v\u00e6rt fire \u00e5r i romjula<\/strong>
\nda julelysene brente dagen lang<\/strong>
\nog verden var et hus med fire vegger,<\/strong>
\nder saligheten var et bestemorsfang<\/strong><\/p>\n

One should have been four years old in Romjula<\/em>
\nwhen the Christmas lights were shining all day long<\/em>
\nand the world was a house with four walls,<\/em>
\nwhere the very bliss was a grandmother\u2019s lap.<\/em><\/p>\n

With this, I\u2019d like to wish all of you a Happy New Year! See you in 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Norwegians just can\u2019t get enough of jula (\u201dthe christmas\u201d). When the whole family has received their gaver (gifts) on julekvelden (Christmas Eve, December 24th), there is still f\u00f8rste og andre juledag (1st and 2nd day of Christmas, December 25th and 26th), a time for eating and visiting friends. (Hva fikk du i julegave i \u00e5r?…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":2824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[7,913],"tags":[293456,43,3245,1166,1193,293476],"class_list":["post-1655","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holidays","category-traditions","tag-alf-proysen","tag-christmas","tag-jul","tag-new-year","tag-presents","tag-romjul"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1655"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1657,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions\/1657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}