December 24 Christmas Eve

Today I went shopping with my dad for some last minute Christmas

things. The snow sure is high in Minnesota!

We had an interesting visitor in our backyard today. If you look carefully you can see a bird on the fence. We think it was either a hawk or a female or young bald eagle. Either way, it was a bird of prey

just hanging out in the city.

It is a traditional in our home to go to Norwegian church on Christmas Eve. This year my mom and I dressed up in traditional Norwegian dress, Bunads, that belonged to

my grandmother. I got to wear the one that my grandmother made herself. It felt pretty cool to wear it and made me think of her.

My whole family came over for dinner. We had Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, salad and lefsa for dinner. We were too full for our rice pudding so we had to wait until after opening presents.

Before presents we had a show. The girls played instruments and sang and the boys read stories to us. (I fell asleep for a little bit. I was still jetlagged!) Then everyone got to open their presents.

Soon it was time for everyone to go home. I went with my brother and his family to spend the night. The snow was falling.....