Christmas kitchen

Turning the kitchen red overnight...    
December 5th

Every year the night before December the first I begin transforming the kitchen and dress it up

A red Christmas kitchen from December 1st

for Christmas.  I am not alone.  Many many homes in Norway will be doing the same thing, bringing Christmas cheer into their home on December the 1st by creating a feeling of warmth and togetherness.  The Norwegians will also be decorating their porches from the 1st too, ensuring a candle is lit to welcome in friends and family to the hub of the home.

My daughter has begun studying this year at university and one of the first things she was worried about was not missing us or how she would make new friends or indeed be worrying about the workload, no, she was upset that she would not wake up on December the 1st and pad into the kitchen to suddenly wake up properly and see it had all turned red and Christmassy, she said she was going to miss that warm feeling.  I felt two emotions that day, pride and happiness that my love of the season and our family traditions mean as much to the next generation as it does to me and then worry about how I could help her recreate that warmth at uni.

I collected all my red kitchen paraphernalia and took a few pieces out to send to Ella so she and her halls of residence flatmates could create a smidge of Norwegian red in their shared kitchen.  I did not want to overwhelm Ella's new friends but also did not want Ella to miss out.  I think we hit the balance well...

A smidge of Norwegian red at university

Even a nisse made it onto
the hot water boiler

Note the tinsel was not from me, it was
the token British addition to the kitchen!

Red curtains for Christmas 

We do not normally have curtains of any sort in our kitchen, we are not overlooked and I like to see out to the garden, but come December the 1st the red Christmas cafe style curtains are put up.  We do not have curtain poles so I use an extending pole that suspends between the walls, it's great, no drilling or marks left for the rest of the year. I have three windows in the kitchen and all are dressed in red.

You may notice on the left of the photo with the red curtain a huge soup/gløg terrain.  It is part of the Norwegian Nisse dinner service produced by Porsgrunn Porselaen My grandmother started me on collecting this service and for all my birthdays and Christmas' for as long as I can remember I was given something to add to my collection.  Now close to 50, I have a full set of the dinner service and I bring it out every year with pride on December 1st.  Every time we use it and we do use it daily it brings back such memories of my grandparents, they are missed but most certainly not forgotten.

To give you an idea of the extending curtain pole, not my photo

All change on December 1st, the Christmas crockery
comes out and red ribbon is added to the shelf too

I even change the cushion pads on our chairs to bring in the red wherever I can in the kitchen, it brings it all together in a uniform happy way, I think!

Nearly everything has a touch of red at this time of the year.

Several years ago I also painted the ends of many wooden utensils to help bring the look together, I only use these ones, which cost just pence at Christmas only.  Nowadays there are several stores selling just red utensils too...

Red kitchen utensils

Every year I make a photo calendar of the previous year's memories.  I don't know about you but I am rubbish these days at compiling photo albums, we take so many photos now in this digital age that to print them all would cost a fortune and take up too much space.  So I take my time and towards the end of every year compile a calendar of memories from the year before.  I keep them all as my modern day photo albums.  I try also to make the month of December red, obviously, and add the previous years Christmas photos too!

December month is a red month

Walking into our kitchen in December warms my heart more than any other time of the year.  

I do so love this season, don't you?

♥  Do you decorate your kitchen for Christmas?