What's In a Name?

  We have had an interesting winter. Drought in the West, Freezing rain in the South, and piles of snow in the Northwest. We've even become acquainted with some new names like

Ole??

Many of our news-worthy events are labeled with a name. Newly discovered planets and comets earn historic names such as Hayley, Saturn, Mars,etc. Winter events are alphabetically named and this winter has created several events with well-known names as well as some unprintable ones. Unusual conditions have found our Western areas warmer than usual, while the Central states seem to be colder than normal. Lately, the Eastern seaboard and northwest states are now experiencing an unbelievable string of storms.
Weather forecasters watched the developement of a series of weather fronts moving through the US ,recently. When two opposing forces meet, there is often a serious reaction.

Octavia? Ole?? Things are becoming weird!

Winter storms usually form when an air mass of cold, dry, Canadian air moves south and interacts with a warm, moist air mass moving north from the Gulf of Mexico. The point where these two air masses meet is called a front. If cold air advances and pushes away the warm air, it forms a cold front. Winter storms develop when low pressure systems come into contact with a cold front or a warm front,resulting in snow and freezing rain. Residents were told to be ready for a winter storm named "Juno". 

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Juno

The name Juno is from Roman mythology, a goddess who looked after the women of Rome. This time, serving both sexes equally. Monday, January 26, the Northeast braced for "Winter Storm Juno", which threatened to become a major snowstorm with potentially historic blizzard conditions. Juno was a record snowstorm for Worcester, 31.9 inches fell in Worcester on Jan. 27, alone! And that was only the beginning!

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Only a week later, another "front" became a threat and was named "Marcus", the ancient Roman Emperor and Greek god Mars, the god of fertility war, and spring! Storm number 2 began February 9th and was expected to be a slow mover, and the snow began to pile up with an additional 20 inches of snow before it let the area.

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Neptune

Not to rest long, three days later, on February 14th, Valentine’s Day, another northeastern winter storm was quickly in weather news. This time," Neptune", the Greek god of freshwater and the sea roared into town with blizzard warnings in eight states; heavy snow, high winds, and brutal wind chills started it out with an additional snowfall rates of two to three inches per hour .The city decided to borrow snow melting machinery from New York City while dumping snow in vacant parking lots, now called "snow farms". The 'storm of the week'. Happy Valentine's Day!

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Octavia

However, Mother Nature was not finished. Weather watchers reported another problem! A region of freezing rain, sleet and dangerous conditions coming from the south. Arriving in the upper northwest February 15th, snowmovers had to find room for the additional snow of Octavia. 

 "Octavia " was the sister of the first Roman Emperor and known for feminine virtue and humanity. This time, it was for a snowfall of an additional twenty inches of   snow, totaling an estimated eight feet of snow on the ground, numerous icy accidents and winter problems , with still another week to go in February. February will be long-remembered in New England as a major snow month. Eight feet of snow in less than a month!
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We usually think that our Scandinavian friends are accustomed to snow on the ground for many months. Therefore, winter storms must be  normal happenings and our current weather patterns would be nothing unusual 'overseas'. Things do seem to be more calm in Norway's weather this winter. However, their year began,  weather-wise early, as weather reports of the first weather storm of 2015 in Norway took shape under  the name of "Nina". Nina has an interesting story. She was the ancient goddess of health, healing and helping civilization!  What happened??

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Nina

Extreme winter storm ‘Nina’  hit the west coast of Norway on January 11, with wind speed of 166 kmph. The hurricane strength winds left over 73,000 household without power, uprooting trees, tearing up infrastructures . A  reporter noted : "Never before has it been measured so much, so early in the year." According to several weather reports, this winter storm had been strongest in last 20 years. Snow-covered cabins are in danger of  roofs collapsing . Weather advisors are offering advice based on years of construction. Older cabins are vulnerable,"Cabins built after 1980 varies as to how they are designed. In practice, one should shovel the roof when snow depth begins to approach 1 meter (39 inches)." Apparently, rooftop snow depth under 3 feet is not really a problem in Norway!

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Following this hurricane-force storm, TV listeners were informed that still another weather pattern was soon to arrive! However, "this one would not be as severe". This one would be called "Ole". Ole

 doesn't have any mythical background. Everyone knows Ole. But this one was no joke!

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Washed out bridge

Ole arrived February 7th , virtually dividing Norway in two when the major Highway E6 was closed at Namskogan in Nord-Trøndelag county. The road surface on a key bridge had been washed away. E6 is the only road between Southern and Northern Norway, and there was no possibility for a detour, according to NRK reports. The only possibility would be to drive via Sweden!

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There were numerous reports of damage caused by the storm that hit.  in Lofoten, a number of households were without electricity. It took take days to restore the damaged grid, as several blocked roads made it difficult for the repair crews to reach the damage spots. Hurricane-force winds caused waves of  twenty-five meters in height that destroyed shoreline buildings and fisheries.  Ole turned out to be a major storm.

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During discussion about winter storms,one listener inquired as to why all storms  had a name. The answer: "It's simply easier to communicate about a complex storm if it has a name" said Bryan Norcross, senior hurricane specialist at The Weather Channel and compiler of the name list.   "Good communications benefits everyone."

There will be many people rejoicing at the arrival of spring, however, the huge piles of snow will be melting and  floods and sandbags will again be in the news!  All that melted water will have to go somewhere.

 Another well-known name : "Mother Nature"

  and she's  tricky!



Women in Time

Look at this!

Anyone walking our local city sidewalks can expect to see pedestrians wearing a wide variety of clothing. However, seeing someone  clothed in this fashion might be considered out of the ordinary.

In Arabian nations, this would be very commonplace and often required.  Women are covered from the top of their head to their feet in a black costume called a 'Burqa'. This costume has , in the strictest interpretation of some Muslim males, been required to be worn in public.

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'Burqa' is an Arabized Persian word meaning 'curtain and veil'. The Quran ,the  Muslim Holy Book, has no requirement that women cover their faces with a veil, or cover their bodies with the full-body burqa. Many Muslims believe that the  tradition goes back to the days of the Prophet  Muhammed,  requiring both men and women to dress and behave modestly in public. However, this requirement has been interpreted in many different ways. The Quran has been translated to instruct women:
"not  to display their beauty  except to their husbands, or their fathers, or their husband's fathers, or their sons, or their husband's sons," ....and others in the family relationship.
This is considered  a virtue in a Middle Eastern Muslim patriarchal society, a strongly gender-specific  relations within a family stressing honor, attention, respect/respectability, and modesty. Young, unmarried women or young, married women in their first years of marriage are required to wear the burqa. However,  the husband usually decides if his wife should continue to wear a burqa. The body-covering is necessary because a

Muslim man who sees a woman's body parts can be  aroused, and this might cause him to commit sin. Islamic State in Iraq and Syria  compels people in the areas that it controls to declare Islamic creed and live according to its interpretation of Sunni Islam and sharia law. ISIL warned women in the city of Mosul to wear full-face veils or face severe punishment. One rule stipulated that women should stay at home and not go outside unless necessary.

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17 yr old Malala Yousafzai  is a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate.She is known mainly for human rights advocacy for education and for women in her native Swat Valley in  northwest Pakistan  where the local Taliban has banned girls from attending school. One October afternoon in 2012, Yousafzai boarded her school bus in the northwest Pakistani district of Swat. A gunman asked for her by name, then pointed a pistol at her and fired three shots. The assassination attempt sparked a national and international outpouring of support for Yousafzai.Taliban had set an edict that no girls could attend school after 15 January 2009. In these countries, girls and women in general are forbidden to be educated, and  strictly regulated in their daily activities. Those wishing to participate in any Western country culture activity and not adherring to current laws are severely punished.

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Different countries have different attitudes pertaining to the ‘Fairer Sex’. 

Women in  America  campaigned for their right to vote for several decades until the legal right of women to vote  was established   nationally in 1920.  The slogan of " All men are created equal"  omits the American women as they strive for 'equal pay; for doing the same work.

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Considering  this 'male superiority' status, one might wonder how the woman's life must have been in the Viking age of  uneducated and seemingly vicious nature of the raiding and plundering Vikings.

 Women in the Viking age were considered property and plunder when at war and carried off as slaves.

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Due to a lack of education and no written language, 'word of mouth'  stories past down through generations of Vikings and later Scandinavian excavations have revealed that the roles of men and women in Norse society to be quite distinct and male dominated. Each gender had a set of expected behaviors, and that line could not be crossed. Women did not participate in trading or raiding parties (although they clearly participated in journeys of exploration and settlement to places such as Iceland and Vínland).

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Women’s responsibilites were clearly defined to be domestic. Members of either sex who crossed the gender line were, at very least,
not    approved by society and often strictly prohibited by law. The medieval Icelandic lawbook Grágás prohibited women from wearing men’s clothes, from cutting their hair short, or from carrying weapons. She was prohibited from participating in most political or governmental activities On the other hand, women were respected in Norse society and had great freedom. In most sagas, the heroes are men and probably were written by men. Women tend to play only minor roles, but those roles are varied. In real life, the female characters were strong.The women seemed  much harder than the men, even more eager to protect the family’s honor. It was considered shameful  to harm a woman, and examples in the sagas of such violence are rare.

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In one of these sagas , Gunnar, in a fit of rage, slapped his wife Hallgerur in the face when he discovered his wife had stolen food from a nearby farm during a famine. (Theft was highly unacceptable in Norse society.) Hallgerur said she would remember that slap and pay him back. Some years later, in this story, Gunnar was attacked in his home by a gang seeking revenge. He kept the attack party at bay with a shower of arrows from his bow. When his bow string was cut by one of the attackers, he asked his wife,Hallger for two locks of her hair in order to make a new one.

“Does anything depend on it?” she asked.”My life,” replied Gunnar.

”Then I remind you of the slap you once gave me,” and she refused to give him the hair.

Gunnar was eventually overcome by the attackers and killed.

Women were excluded from these kinds of attacks on a household. It was a grave dishonor for a man to injure a woman, even accidentally, in an attack on a household. And if, for instance, a house were going to be burned to kill the occupants, women and children were allowed to leave without injury.

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In another Norse saga, a vengeful warrior named Eyjólfur and his men attacked Gísli in overwhelming numbers, Gísli’s wife Auur stood by his side, armed with a club. In the first rush, Gísli killed the chief attacker  while Auur struck Eyjólfur so hard with her club that he staggered back down the hill. Soon after, Eyjólfur returned and killed Gísli .

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 Later in the saga, Eyjólfur visited Börkur and his wife. The woman of the house happened to be Gisli’s sister, Ordís, and she did not  want to offer hospitality to her brother’s killer, but her husband insisted. During the meal, Ordís recognized Gísli’s sword lying on the floor by the killer’s feet. She dropped a tray of spoons, and after bending down to pick them up, she grabbed the sword and thrust up at Eyjólfur from below, inflicting a fatal wound. Due to her husband's action, she divorced him on the spot. Viking women had some rights and were granted great respect from the viking men.

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Women’s roles vary from country to country. Ancient accounts have evolved into actions never intended by the earlier authors. Our news is filled with unbelievable horrors as vindictive leaders have twisted these basic beliefs into new laws, killing their enemies and violently preventing the education of their women and female children.

  Equality for all has been difficult to achieve.

Here We Go, Again!

The Christmas tree is out and most of those  tree needles that remain stuck deeply into the carpet are being removed one by one. Things are coming back to normal, or is it?

The TV weatherman is showing the latest weather forecast and it looks like very familiar. 

It seems to be the same one shown at this time--last year! 

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There’s a big bulge from the north with warnings of bitter cold winds and below normal temperatures.Here we go again! Another ‘Polar Vortex’! National Weather Service meteorologist Paul Kocin, an expert on winter storms, said “This is a classic pattern of massive blasts of Arctic air hitting just about everyone east of the Rockies”. He said “It will rival last year’s January Arctic outbreak that  introduced the phrase ‘polar vortex’ to America”.   This ‘vortex’ is a weather pattern made up of strong winds circulating around a low-pressure system. It usually stays up north, keeping the cold confined, but, lately, it strays away from its normal winter position over the Arctic because of a weakening jet stream, a belt of fast westerly winds that normally act as a boundary between cold northern air and warmer southern air. Global warming? Northern sea-ice is melting. Scientific reports are claiming the lack of sea ice strips the

Arctic ocean of the ice's insulating properties causing more heat to move from the water to the air. This, in turn, affects  air pressure in the Arctic and changes the air movement around the region.This causes that  polar vortex to weaken and the cold air can then spill southerly into our area. Remembering last year, California and Arizona in 2014 recorded their warmest years on record, while the midwest set low temperature records. Buffalo has already seen monstrous snowfall totals. Will 2015 be a repeat??

3 PM in the afternoon

If we are experiencing subnormal weather conditions, one would expect our overseas friends to be expecting the same treatment.

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Since November, Northern Norway is  'in the dark'

The sun not rising is the real definition of mørketiden, the Murky time!  

Above the Arctic Circle  the winter sun doesn’t even rise, and residents of Tromsø, Alta, etc . have to make do with an eery (yet beautiful, they say) purple polar night twilight for several weeks. A good reason to stay in bed,  but doctors say “ too much sleep will make you tired.” However, Scandinavians seem to enjoy their winters. News  from overseas doesn’t reflect this 'Polar thing', except that while cold air was allowed to spill into the US and Canada last January, more humid temperatures came to much of Europe. This, added to an already warmer than average winter, led to increased rainfall in countries including Norway and Finland.  Oslo’s temperatures are rather moderate for a city located as far north as it is. The average low winter temperature in Oslo is only about minus 4 degrees Celsius (around 23 

° Fahrenheit), which is a bit warmer than the winter temperatures of most American and European cities. Large parts of Norway had up to three times as much rain as normal, last January .This unusual warming situation  caused hibernating bears to wake up early in Finland, while plants   such as daffodils emerged as early as December 14th  in Norway. The Olso forecast for January 8-10, 2014 was ‘Breezy! Morning rain, cloudy’.  Wisconsin's forecast for January 8-10, 2015 currently reads ‘Bitter cold, 2 or more inches of snow expected, with wind chills of 15-30 degrees below.’ 

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A Wisconsin TV commercial asks viewers “ Why do people wish to live in Wisconsin in the wintertime? It must be the weather!”

It's Over...Again!

" Hope you had a good Christmas? What did you get?"

Christmas is over. Once again, we have memories of family gatherings, happy faces, gifts given and received

 and now,family visitors who have left for their homes.

Time to get the vacuum cleaner out, take off all those ornaments and put away the artificial tree . It’s over, again. Stores and shops have been enjoying their seasonal upsurge in business and now it’s time to check the ‘bottom line’. It’s a great time of the year!

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The secular sideshow of modern Christmas represents a time of joy, gift-giving. Early history credits the first gift-giving and travel to that of the three wise-men visiting the new-born baby Jesus.
Christmas in the Christian tradition honors the birth of Christ – though the commercial side outshouts the sacred in our modern society. History accounts of ‘Christmas’, as we know it, evolved out of the Roman tradition of Saturnalia, a festival honoring their god of agriculture, Saturn, on the winter solstice. Currently, the commercial side of the holiday season heavily outweighs the sacred meaning of Christmas.

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Many of our traditional practices of Christmas have evolved from the past. December is cold, damp with long, dark nights.Christmas in Scandinavia is an antidote to darkness, a way to break winter's hold. From lighting the candles during Advent to following the ritual of burning the Yule Log, Scandinavian Christmas traditions are the highlight of the festive season.

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Advent, for Christians everywhere opens the joyful activities. A candle is lit in each of the four Sundays in prepare for the anticipated event celebrated in US churches.

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 December 6th is an important date for today’s children. Saint Nicolas has been known to bring rewards to the young.

A fourth century bishop named Nicolas was concerned with the people living in poverty in his area.

He gave what he could in homemade food, clothes, and furniture. The bishop even gave out oranges, which would have been very rare and expensive in Lycia, where he lived. The problem: ‘Where to leave these gifts so that the children would find them?’..Everyone would go the early-morning fireplace to get warm! Many people believe Saint Nicholas was the basis of Santa Claus, but the practice of stocking-stuffing can be traced back to his charitable donations in the 4th century. Nicholas believed that childhood should be savored and enjoyed – but in a time where boys and girls younger than 10 had to work to support their families, this wasn’t always possible.

　

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A Famous Swedish saint coincides with the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year before calendar reforms, so her feast day has

become a festival of light. Lussinatta, the Lussi Night, was marked in Sweden, December 13 . According to the traditional story, Lucia was born of rich and noble parents around the year 283. It is believed that a Sicilian Saint called Lucia was killed for her Christian faith in 304 AD.

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Scandinavia is known to be the birthplace of Yuletide traditions. The dark, cold winters inspired the development of these customs that would go on to become one of the most important traditions in Christmas around the world.

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Since Scandinavia experiences little natural light for a large amount of the year, the sun has become extremely important to the Scandinavian people. In ancient times, it was believed that the gods controlled the return of the sun and if they were not  worshipped properly , the sun would not return. Because of these superstitions, many Scandinavian holidays, such as Midsummer,Santa Lucia Day, and Christmas, revolve around  the celebration of the sun and light.
   

The high point of the Scandinavian season is not Christmas Day, but Christmas Eve. This part of Scandinavian Christmas traditions  may also have to do with darkness. Coming to dinner through streets wrapped in darkness, having the door of welcome opened and yellow light suddenly streaming out into the dark  must create a warm and friendly atmosphere.

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  Not Santa, but the' Julenisse' puts presents under the Christmas tree at night. According to customs, children leave a bowl of porridge outside for the gnome, in the hope that the gnome gets impressed and leaves presents. At times , the Julenissen can be seen in a small sleigh pulled by a goat!

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In Scandinavia, a small gnome called 'Straw Goats', also known as the'Yule Goat' are

probably the most famous Scandinavian Christmas characters. Typically made out of straw,  these goats are associated with the custom of 'wassailing', sometimes referred to as 'going Yule Goat' in Scandinavia. This can be traced back to sagas recalling two goats pulling the wagon of Thor, the powerful mystic-being who made thunder and lightning by throwing his hammer in the sky. The straw comes from the last bundle of grain harvested earlier to honor a successful harvest season.

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Possible, we may be able to 'spice up' our caroling fun next year! Between Christmas and New  Year’s Day, Scandinavians don masks and costumes and go door to door. Neighbors receiving them attempt to identify who is at their door because the visitors  often disguise their voices and body language to further the masquerade. Offering the visiting people holiday treats and something to drink is customary. Once identities are known and the food is eaten, the Julebukkers,  continue to the next home. This custom has been borrowed and enjoyed by American youth in our Halloween Eve every year.

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The Yule season remains a time for feasting, drinking, gift-giving, and gatherings, but, in the past, it was also  the season of awareness and fear of the forces of the dark.

-In the words of Thor Heyerdahl -

"We use our holidays to celebrate the sun. We celebrate the arrival of the sun, the summer

solstice, we journey to the mountains in search of the sun, and on the days we miss it the

most, because it is farthest away, we cheer ourselves with a grand Christmas fest".
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Now that the Christmas festivities have ended ,  we  expect a long winter. But first, we take some time to reflect on the 'Old Year' , and make our plans for the days yet to come!  Hopefully, an even better year  ahead.

Happy New Year!

Christmas, Long Ago

 

 In ancient times, long before Christianity came to Scandinavia, “Jul” or “Yule” was an observation of the winter solstice. It was a mid-winter celebration of the transition from the dark winter to spring and the time to celebrate harvest, fertility and birth. December is the darkest month of the year but it is also when the days start to get longer again. In “The Early Days”,      

    

 Jul was  a pagan tradition that, in time,slowly converted into a Christian custom , the last week of December,celebrating the birth of Jesus.

And today...

 

In Sweden, youngsters had  their stockings hung at the end of their bed before the morning of the 24th,  Christmas Eve. Following the discovery of the stockings contents, joyous activities were enjoyed   until about 3 pm. At this time, much of Sweden gathered their families, of all things, to watch  cartoons! This was the time when a viewing of Donald Duck and his Friends officially kicked off the Christmas festivities.

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Every year on Dec. 24 at 3 p.m., half of Sweden sits down in front of the television for a family viewing of the 1958 Walt Disney Presents Christmas special, "From All of Us to All of You." Or as it is known in Sverige (Swedish),' Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul:' ( Donald Duck and his friends extend their Christmas wishes).

Kalle Anka (pronounced kah-lay ahn-kah) gets its name from the star of the show's animated short, a 1944 cartoon called "Clown of the Jungle," in which Donald Duck is tormented by a demented Aracuan Bird during a luckless ornithological expedition.
The show's cultural significance is VERY important! There is no taping or DVR Kalle Anka for later viewing, and   no eating or dinner preparation is allowed while watching Kalle Anka. Every member of the family is expected to sit quietly together and watch a program that generations of Swedes have been watching for fifty years. Most families plan their entire Christmas around Kalle Anka, from the Smörgåsbord at lunch to the post-Kalle visit from Jultomten. It has been said that "At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you can't to do anything else, because Sweden is closed." Each time the network has attempted to cancel or alter the show, public complaints have been swift and fierce.

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After the show, the tree that has been decorated with strings of the country flag, or white lights that resemble  the  bonfires that lit
the  dark  winter nights might be the center of family activity. Everyone joins hands and they circle the tree while singing  “Nu är det jul igen, nu är det jul igen!”and other favorites until everyone stops singing and starts walking towards the table. It’s time for the Christmas smorgasbord.

The traditional Scandinavian kitchen offers a wide variety of cold and warm traditional Christmas dishes. The cuisine varies slightly between the three countries  It is expected that you should go around seven times to get food at a proper smorgasbord ,because of the wide range of cold and hot food, fish, meat and desserts that is served. Some of the fish dishes that might be included are herring & lutefisk. The herring is pickled and comes in many variations, tasting of garlic, tomato or mustard. Other dishes include lutefisk, as well as meatballs, ham, duck, sausages and rice pudding. And of course there is an abundance of salads and garnish to go with it.

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Soon, there’s a knock on the door and Swedish youngsters happily allow the jultomten to join the festivities. In Norway, he’s the
 julenissen, in Denmark, he’s known as the julemanden. He’s believed to be a cross between the garden gnome and the Greek Saint Nichlas whose generosity became the inspiration for today’s American Santa Claus. Julenisse is a kind of cross between Father Christmas and a nisse. The most characteristic features of Norway's answer to Santa Claus are his red stocking cap and long white beard. The Julenisse wears knee breeches, hand-knitted stockings, a Norwegian sweater and a homespun jacket. On top he wears a heavy fur coat — it can get cold in Norway in the winter.

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Exactly where he lives is also disputed. Some say the North Pole is his real home, but in Scandinavia it is almost common knowledge that he lives in Rovaniemi, Finland, or if you ask a Dane, they might say he is from Greenland.
Santa (the Jultomte) delivers his presents in person and never flying through the air on a sleigh pulled by magical reindeer but sometimes on a sled pulled by a goat.

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  December 25th finds churchgoers enjoying a Christmas service and a quiet day with their

family.
    In Sweden, December 26th is a day of socializing. Children’s parties are held in the afternoon, while adults parties are held later in the evening and animals are given extra food.

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 In this season of games and merriment, there is little mention of children's bedtimes. In this time of long, cold, dark winter nights, the lights of Christmas and the songs of  celebration happily mark the Twenty Days of Christmas, ending January 13th, St. Knut’s Day.

        Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul 

(Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Merry Christmas)

Is Everybody Happy?

" 'Tis the season to be jolly.."

Stores have been crowded with shoppers hurrying through the crowded aisles as they try to find that advertised item that is on sale for only a short time. It began feverishly on Thanksgiving Day, continuing on Black Friday and now, the newest Cyber Monday!  People with "the means" are happily  planning on their future gift sharing, if not for their own 'material needs' at the present time.

Thanksgiving Day was quietly spent with friends and relatives, perhaps attending church services after which they traveled to warm and cozy gatherings at home.

  Major holidays are enjoyed by most people in comfort and joy, while others are not so fortunate. Military personnel have only memories as they spent lonely hours away from their loved ones. 

Homeless individuals have no home in which to go.

 Soup kitchens,

volunteers in church basements and social institutions open their doors, inviting these often cold and lonely individuals to share a hot meal and perhaps a place to sleep for the cold winter evening. The holiday spirit is shared for a short time.

Winter must be a very hard season for the homeless. Thankfully, the "more fortunate" tend to open their hearts during the winter season while perhaps thinking that 'They can take care of themselves in the spring and summer'.

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Exchange students coming from the Scandinavian area  to experience US schools all comment on special attention given to the effect of the long,dark Scandinavian winter nights. It is typical for foreigners to be nervous about facing the dark winters in Norway. 

Above the Arctic Circle, there is a period of time when the sun doesn’t make it over the horizon. When the sun doesn’t appear for 24 hours, it's called a Polar Night. The higher above the Arctic Circle, the more Polar Nights there are. Tromsø  is  217 miles above the Arctic Circle and has 60 Polar Nights in a row and this lack of sunlight has a depressing effect.

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that’s related to changes in seasons — SAD begins and ends at about the same times every year.  Symptoms start in the fall and continue into the winter months, sapping energy and causing people to feel moody.

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Norwegians have a " solution" to offset this winter problem. Mothers give their children a daily spoonful of  fish oil, commonly called "Cod Liver Oil" which serves as a replacement for missing vitamins and helps the body to replace the  effects of  sunlight. Cod liver oil contains lot of good omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin A and vitamin D. Even though Norwegians eat a lot of fish products, it is normal for children and adults to have a spoonful of cod liver oil every day of the year, especially in the long winter season.

Cod liver oil was traditionally manufactured by filling a wooden barrel with fresh cod livers and seawater and allowing the mixture to ferment for up to a year before removing the oil. Modern cod liver oil is made by cooking the whole cod  fish during the manufacture of fish meal.

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For the people who are trying to sleep at night and rise in the morning light , time becomes confusing. Melatonin can be  taken in the

evening as the standard treatment for delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD) and where circadian rhythms are not biologically synchronized  to the winter cycle. Polar nights and days blur and sleep cycles become confusing.Melatonin is found in many plants including rice, corn, tomato, grape and other edible fruits.The primary function is regulation of day-night cycles function as the synchronizer of the biological clock, melatonin interacts with the immune system.

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Many people believe that suicide rates peak during the winter months.This seems to make sense  given the existence of seasonal affective disorder and the tendency to associate depression with winter. Harsh weather increases the prevalence of diseases such as pneumonia and hypothermia due to minimal amount of sunlight in the winter time.   

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The Saturday before our Thanksgiving Day is designated National Survivors of Suicide Day by the United States Congress as a day when friends and family of those who have died by suicide can join together for healing and support. Finland held candlelit vigils  to commemorate its citizens who have taken their own lives.

An average of two people a day commit suicide in Finland, and campaigners insist it is time for a suicide prevention strategy to be put in place.

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The Finnish Central Association for Mental Health organized the annual event in 1992, at which candlelit vigils were held all over the country.  
The association is urging more action to take place to fight the scourge of suicide, estimating that up to 20,000 people try to commit suicide in Finland each year.The Finnish Central Association for Mental Health has organized the annual vigils to draw people’s attention to suicide and how we can prevent it. Suicide levels are highest among the retired, unemployed, impoverished, divorced, the childless, urbanites, empty- nesters, and other people who live alone. As the weather becomes cold, and nights become longer, attention is focused on those in need .  When the weather warms, we tend to forget, and our benevolent spirit seems to ebb during the remainder of the year.

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Although the dreary days of winter are depressing at times, I was surprised to learn that the idea that "suicide is more common during the winter holidays" is actually a myth, generally reinforced by media coverage associating suicide with the holiday season.
The National Center for Health Statistics found that suicides drop during the winter months, and peak during spring and early summer.Industrialized countries including Finland, Sweden have provided enough information to show that  suicidal tendencies are effected by the season, but this 'seasonal variation in suicide incidents' could be explained by the increase of sunshine in summer months and  high temperatures!

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 Most suicides take place in the spring because “everything begins to awake; activity is resumed, relations spring up, interchanges increase". In other words, it’s also human interactions, and not only the environment that caused higher incidence of suicide in spring or summer “The vast majority of people don’t commit suicide because they want to kill themselves, but as a way to end the torment of not being able to cope with a problem.”
 

While our holiday spirits causes us to be more caring, the actions of  the bell-ringers at the mall are quite often avoided. It is easy to believe they are collecting funds to be given to the homeless at the present time. However,  these funds may be   needed later,  as the needs and  risk of depression increases for the less fortunate.

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The long winter nights can be a source of exercise and activity.

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In Norway, darkness is just a way of life. People in warmer countries think that when it is dark you have to stay indoors, but this is impractical when you only have an hour of light each day. Darkness in Norway is also playtime, just the same as if it was light. After school, it is dark but the kids play in the snow. They go sledding, build snowmen and have

snowball fights in their front yards, down the street and in the parks. Kids  walk to school in the darkness and walk home in the darkness.

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Norwegians love fire. Any chance they get they will light up a candle. It is normal to see many candles on tables and windowsills.   Christmas lights are lit at the beginning of the dark season,just before Advent, and stay on until mid-January. In the dark season. Norwegians place hanging lamps in the windows to mimic the sun.

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Winter in Scandinavia is a magical time. If you enjoy winter sports, visit Scandinavia and Finland. This is the perfect time of the year for winter sports such as skiing, snowboarding, or sledding.                       Have fun in the snow!

 May the joy of Christmas be with us now and not forgotten as time goes on.