A Merry Norske Saturday

Last year I had pinned a fun outing idea on my "Local" board on Pinterest. It was an idea for a Norwegian Christmas outing with my sister. It never transpired because Mace had to get his tonsils taken out. This year we made it happen!

What a great find! The place we visited was The Norskedalen Heritage and Nature Center for their annual Old Fashioned Christmas. 
It was a two hour drive for us but very worth the time. The last thirty minutes was such a pretty drive. I see on the website they have a number of events during the year as well as quite a few hiking trails.
I would really like to get back in October for the
Civil War immersion weekend.

Anyhow, my sister made the drive over for a bit of holiday cheer together. We had a lovely day together. Here are some pictures of our day together. She's a bit shy on the pics but I promise she was there!!  Next time I'll have to insist on more pictures together!!


Carriage ride! Nutmeg rode up front!

Some of the wild dudes on the ride. 

The visitors center was interesting with a nice gift shop and a number of rooms with Norwegian artifacts from centuries past. There was a Norwegian dinner going on throughout the afternoon, entertainment, Norwegian baked goods, and some crafts for the kids.

Old sleigh with rosemaling.

In this old house on the homestead they had a table for ornament-making and a lefse demonstration in the kitchen. It was neat to watch them use the old stove in there. There were plenty of lefse samples for all!

All powdery after eating a bunch of lefse.

Next we headed to the blacksmith cabin where we watched them make a Christmas ornament for us.

We wandered around the farmstead a bit before going back to the shelter to eat our lunch by the fire with a cup of warm hot chocolate. Good times!

Poking around the sheds. 

Tobacco shed. I'm guessing this guy is to chase away evil spirits.

On the way home we found a Christmas tree farm. We love this new tradition for our family!!  I am hoping every year we can keep traveling around finding new places to choose our tree for the year. This one was another good find. Hot chocolate for all!

This Santa was hilarious. We were taking pics with the younger, not even trying to get the older boys in the pic. I mentioned that we wouldn't worry about the teenagers. Santa saw Basil come out of the shop and he calls out to him "Hey teenager, come on over!" I whisper his name and Santa calls him out by name and insists on a picture. Basil was won over!