Merry Christmas

"MERR-REY CHRIStmas! Come on IN!" our neighbor man said Sunday night as I stepped through his door offering a gift. He added, "We've ALL got the FLU!"

I handed him a bag and said, "OH! I just wanted to deliver a little Christmas treat. Hope you all feel better REAL soon!"

Quickly, I stepped back outside. He waved, "I'm sure we will."

Noah's bout with the bug had lasted a couple days: Thursday night to Saturday morning. Sunday morning everyone in our house was fine. But late that night, Isaac and Aaron felt wretched. Hours later, I felt the tight knot in my stomach. On Monday, the chills set in along with the other trouble.

"Bananas, Rice, Apples and Toast," I ticked off the "BRAT" diet as the boys hollered for something to soothe their hunger. Isaac took comfort in Aunt Else's tummy settler: thin slices of banana on toast. Dan alone seemed unaffected by the bug and left mid-afternoon to warm up with the choir for the 4 pm Candle Light service. I conceded: No fancy Christmas Eve dinner.

Instead I decided on a simple, yet traditional, meal of rice porridge... made from scratch but based on ingredients and methods, I'd memorized from packaged Norwegian fare.

1-1/2 cups of rice
2 cups water
5 cups of milk
1 teaspoon butter
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Put all ingredients in a kettle, stir and bring to a boil. Simmer 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until rice in very tender. If desired, thin by adding milk. Serve in a bowl with sprinkles of cinnamon and sugar and topped with a pad of butter.

I figured these measurements would allow six servings – an extra bowl for Noah to leave out for the nisse. Ancient Norwegian tradition holds that this gnome-like creature (pictured above on the placemat) properly care takes rural homesteads for a bowl of rice porridge offered each Christmas. Should the residents forget, the nisse then plays tricks – dumping over buckets of milk, tying knots in ropes or impeding other daily duties – on them throughout the next year.

I thought: Why press our luck? With Noah's tricks, who'd knowingly risk a nisse's?

For extra fun, I boiled a small pot of water, scalded a whole almond, peeled off the husk and stirred it into the rice porridge. Next I took a bottle of black-currant concentrate and mixed up a pitcher of juice.

"What's that I smell?" Isaac asked coming up from the family room. "Rice porridge? Mmmm."

We dished up when Dan returned from the service. Isaac was about to take a bite when I said, "WAIT!"

Isaac grinned, "Did you put an almond in this?"

"Yep," I said. He wagered, "Whoever gets the almond is the footstool!"

I countered, "Actually, I had a present for the person to open."

"Aw," Isaac said. I offered, "But, we can do it your way."

(Our boys know these rule variations which I'd learned with my Norwegian host family.) Aaron interrupted, "What's the present?"

"You'll just have to see," I said. "How about we do both ways? The person who gets the almond must first be the footstool and then can open the present?"

All agreed. On the second bite, Isaac announced, "I got the almond."

"Next time, I bet you'll won't speak so quickly," I teased as Isaac crawled under the table into his footstool position.

Later when we gathered in the family room to open and use the gift – a DVD movie called "The Nativity" – Isaac replied "You're right! MER-RY CHRIStmas!"

The intonation reminded me of our neighbor man and so I recounted my visitation story ending: "Come on in! We've all got the flu."