Keeping Christmas: Yuletide Traditions In Norway And The New Land [Paperback]

Kathleen Stokker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2001

The modern Norwegian-American Christmas is a warm and regenerative family holiday for millions of Americans whose ancestors came from Norway -- celebrated with family feasts of lutefisk, lefse, rommegrot, rull, and fruit soup, observed in homes where trees are decorated with straw ornaments, flags, and heart-shaped baskets. It is the time to carry on customs whose origins have been lost in the past. This book brings home the stories of Christmas customs in both countries. Norwegian immigrants carried with them the folk traditions, developed over centuries, that shaped their identities, and they held those practices especially dear at Christmas time, remembering family members left behind. But in the U.S., they and their descendants met the newly evolving traditions of the highly commercial American Christmas, a powerful homogenising force in a nation of immigrants. And the celebration of Christmas in Norway continued to evolve as well, as the holiday -- influenced in the twentieth century by U.S. practices -- became more child-centred and more commercial. Stokker describes and traces the development of folkways on both sides of the ocean, from their origins to their practice today. With fascinating details, with scores of accounts of ancient and modern Christmases, with recipes and photographs, this book reminds Norwegians and Norwegian Americans of their connections to each other and explains how their celebrations differ on this most joyous of holidays.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kathleen Stokker is a professor of Norwegian at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. She is the author of "Folklore Fights the Nazis: Humor in Occupied Norway, 1941-45" and coauthor of "Norsk, nordmen og Norge", a Norwegian language textbook.

Product Details

• Paperback: 379 pages
• Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873513908
• ISBN-13: 978-0873513906
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #715,608 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #68 in Books > History > Europe > Norway

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for Norwegian-Americans, December 17, 2007

By 

J.M. (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Keeping Christmas: Yuletide Traditions in Norway and the New Land (Hardcover)

This book is a valuable addition to the collection of anyone who enjoys reading about Christmas traditions.

Stoker traces the Roman and Viking roots to Christmas celebrations in Norway and their evolution among Norwegian-Americans. She emphasizes the importance of preserving ethnic heritage: "Americans find in ethnicity an antidote to the isolation that has grown increasingly acute in the wake of the massive suburbanization that began in the 1940's.... Ethnicity fulfills the particularly American need for origins and belonging..."

Christmas is an ideal time to reconnect with one's cultural roots. As Stokker writes: "Incorporating change while retaining everything that makes it so beloved, Christmas holds within its vast and monumental embrace diverse individuals, families and cultures, allowing each a means of self-expression."

The "authenticity" of ethnic celebrations, however, is open to interpretation. Stokker writes: "When people no longer fear that their ethnicity may threaten their life chances, they can express it more freely. With greater time separating them from the Old Country, they can also feel less constraint about the way they choose to express their attachment to it. As a result, individuals and families increasingly create the content of their ethnicity, picking and choosing the items that they themselves find meaningful...."

This book is a great read and worth the trouble of finding a used copy. (Or buy a brand new copy from Barnes & Noble)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing resource!, February 16, 2010

By 

K. Grasty - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Keeping Christmas: Yuletide Traditions In Norway And The New Land (Paperback)

This book goes very in-depth into details about Norwegian traditions, and also quite a bit into the myths and creatures surrounding them. There are recipes in there as well and tid-bits about how rural life was and what they ate and even how they prepared it. This book is fascinating and a good resource for anyone interested in Norwegian myth and traditions in general.