How Sharp are the Pine Needles This Year?
Our first Christmas without him.
Tomorrow, my daughter, son, and daughter-in-law are going to trim the Christmas tree. It will be our first Christmas with an empty seat at the table. My husband, my children’s dad, died in April. I was married to him for forty-three years.
They will hang the decorations. I’m in charge of the food. I’m putting out a smorgasbord, but nothing fancy. Smoked reindeer, gravlax, mosses, burnt-hay salt, charred lichens and an array of beetles carved with an X-acto knife from lingonberry leather.
Kidding.
If my husband were still alive, he’d have a full smorgasbord of Swedish meatballs, gjetost, nokkelost, Jarlsberg, dill mustard, krumkake, spritz cookies, regular and gluten-free lefse, fattigmann, and rice pudding. I might manage crackers and Cheez-wiz. It doesn't matter all that much what ends up on the dining room table, as long as I have a big pot of glogg1 simmering on the kitchen stove.
Glogg, a deceptively potent mulled wine, has become an important part of our tree-trimming festivities. I know that this year I’ll be drinking quite a bit of it, as I unbox the ornaments and hand them to my children. Now in their thirties, they have their own memories of the various baubles and trinkets. As do I.
Each year, I’m amazed at how many ornaments have survived.
I started collecting them in 1978, on a trip to Scandinavia. Angels, stars, and snowflakes took up a fair amount of space in my soft-sided yellow Samsonite suitcase, as did books and museum brochures. I made my way tirelessly, collecting. On the picturesque Copenhagen docks, I bought a bottle of aquavit to share with my future husband. Walking out of the store, I passed window displays that surprised me with their anatomical realism. I got out of there quickly, feeling the eyes of sailors on my back. One block over, I found a more familiar kind of store, where I bought more books and more ornaments. I took the hydroplane back to less-cosmopolitan Sweden. In the immaculate home of an older woman who rented rooms to young female tourists, I sorted my treasures and swaddled the aquavit in a T-shirt.
Seven days into our three-week trip, I’d ditched my parents. This had not been my plan. But I’d been so mortified when my mother prayed loudly, clutching her purse, at takeoff and landing, in Minneapolis and Oslo. People stared at her. I turned my face to the window. Now I had to meet them in Stockholm, for the flight home. This time the praying began when she saw me, and did not stop until we were safely on the ground.
Before then, as we were about to descend to the Humphrey Terminal, I glanced at the customs sheet. Realizing — how could I have not known this? — that I had to declare alcohol, I went to the toilet and did some silent praying of my own. My heart pounded as my bulging suitcase revolved on the baggage claim carousel. But the customs officer looked at me, then at my parents, and walked on.
I felt the relief I imagined a small-time drug smuggler must feel. Now, I’m pretty sure the customs officer saw that scenario repeated daily during the summer. The Sons of Norway organized regular charter flights, flying thousands of Scandinavian Americans to visit relatives in the land of the midnight sun.
I ran with my then-boyfriend to his car. After a long embrace, I said, “Get me the hell out of here.” We tore out of the parking lot, back to his apartment.
Yesterday, I went to Ingebretsen’s Nordic Marketplace on Lake Street. The weather was mild. I only needed a few things, mostly cheese and sausage.
If I’d waited until the Saturday before Christmas, as is typical for me, I would have parked six blocks away, then searched for the end of the line. Because “Minnesota Nice” freezes under these circumstances into passive aggression, there’d be no chance an old woman like me might cut in. My feet would turn to blocks of ice during the hour it takes to reach the door. I’d be pushing and elbowing my way forward, past depleted shelves. I’d strain to hear my number, hoping that they hadn’t run out of pickled herring in wine sauce.
But on December 8, the sun was shining. It was in the upper forties, with no snow on the ground. I parked half a block away.
“Look what you’ve done with this place!” I called to Vidar, who was — as he always, amazingly, is — the guy behind the counter who shouts my number. Not much had changed, except that a shiny new ATM stood where eighteen or so kinds of rye crisp breads had been. “You’re going to pick my pocket again.”
I told him my husband had died; he said his mother and sister had passed. We held back from speaking of our private sorrows. There was no reason to express them. We both understood.
“Christmas won’t be easy,” he said. He rang up my purchase on the cash register that had always been there, deducting the three-dollar ATM fee. He then did a very un-Norwegian thing. He came around to my side of the counter, and hugged me.
It was comforting to catch up with Vidar. Don’t let that smile fool you. He’s named after Odin’s son, who avenges his father’s death by slaying the mighty wolf, Fenrir.
There must be a hidden ferocity under that mild, Norwegian demeanor. I can see him hacking off pork hocks to be smoked and feeding what’s left into a sausage grinder. Yet, he was called to do God’s work from behind the counter of the meat market at Ingebretsen’s.
God bless him.
The night after my future husband picked me up from the airport, he asked me marry him. I said yes. We sat on his couch, watching a movie on TV and drinking the aquavit. It must have had a pretty high APV because the next thing we knew, the movie was over, it was four o’clock and because I’d moved back home, he had to drive me there.
Unlike Little Susie, I wasn't in trouble. My parents didn’t wake up as I tiptoed in. I can’t say I was entirely blessed, though. The aquavit had a strong, nasty caraway taste.
“Do you still want to marry me?” I asked him the next day.
“Now that I’ve seen you, drunk, yes,” he replied. And exactly one year later, we stood in from of the congregation and repeated our vows.
Here’s my recipe for the mulled wine known as glogg. The vowel sound is lug, as in nuts or soles. I use aquavit from various craft distilleries located among the Scandinavian descendants of the Upper Midwest. That Danish stuff is, in my opinion, good for putting hair on your chest or taking it off, and not much else.
Glogg (Scandinavian Mulled Wine)
4 cups dry red wine
1 cup brandy
1 cup aquavit
One-quarter cup light brown sugar
1 orange, studded with 12 whole cloves
Additional orange juice, to taste
3 cinnamon sticks
5 cardamom pods
6 allspice berries
Crystallized ginger
Raisins
Slivered almonds
Heat wine, brandy, and aquavit in a large heavy saucepan. Add orange, brown sugar, orange juice if desired, crystallized ginger, and cinnamon sticks. Place whole spices in a tea ball or tie in a cheesecloth bag; add to the pot. Simmer, stirring occasionally. Put a few raisins and almonds in each mug. Fill mugs with hot glogg. Skol!
And happy Christmas to you as well.🎄
Nice piece, Mary. My wife has talked about traveling to Copenhagen for years. I’m likely to plan the trip now, just for the Aquavit.