December 20, 2020

For our 20th yule calendar surprise, we reveal an article by Miss Lina! She wanted to write something about the local yule TV traditions. Are they similar to the ones in yer country? Feel free to share yer local yule TV traditions in the comments!

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Same procedure as every year: Yule TV traditions

by Lina Willowwood

 

Yule is proper lazy, which means that there is a lot of time to watch TV. Here in Norway, the TV schedule on the yule days was more or less set in stone in decades long past. 

This is partly a result of the fact that until 1982, there was only one TV station broadcasting in Norway: the government-owned public broadcaster "Norsk rikskringkasting" (NRK, Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation). Unless yer were so lucky as to live near the border so yer could pick up the Swedish television signals, that is. This meant that everyone watched NRK. This meant that yer didn't tinker much with the schedule on traditional TV days like Christmas Eve. And we still got the same shows showing nowadays.

So what is the traditional NRK TV yule?

 

Kvelden før kvelden. Photo: NRK

 

It all starts on December 23. Traditionally, this is the final day of yule preparations, which means that the floors are scrubbed, the food is bought, and the yule tree is decorated. After all this, it is time to relax. By watching "Kvelden før kvelden" (The evening before the evening), an extremely cozy TV show where some exceptionally happy hosts do trivial chit-chats, invite artists to sing yule songs and have the Prime Minister talk about their yule traditions. And, most importantly, they have a chef who prepares yule food and tries to answer the most critical question of them all: How do you ensure that the crackling on the pork ribs is proper crispy? On Christmas Eve, 47% of Norwegians eat pork ribs for dinner, and no-one wants to experience the ultimate humiliation of serving chewy, tough crackling...

The show also contains the evening's highlight (or low point) for many: A 1963 TV skit called "Dinner for one", which is insanely popular in parts of Europe around yule. It tells the tale of a butler who serves a four-course dinner for an old lady celebrating her birthday. Given that her four invited friends are long deceased, the butler not only has to play their roles during dinner, but he also has drink all their toasts. Leading to much intoxicated slapstick. The skit has been shown here every December 23 since 1980. One year NRK broadcast it 15 minutes early. The resulting barrage of complaints from the audience caused it to be run again later in the evening. You can see the skit here.

 

"Same procedure as every year". Dinner for one. Photo: NDR

 

The traditions continue on Christmas Eve. Various children shows run in the morning, until 11AM. Then three big hitters are rolled out.

First, we get "Tre nøtter til Askepott" (Three wishes for Cinderella), a 1973 Czech/East German version of the Cinderella story. It is quite popular in many European countries, but in Norway, there simply won't be yule without it. The version show here is notable for being dubbed, with the same actor voicing all the roles, male and female, over the original Czech soundtrack. It works somehow.

Tre nøtter til Askepott. Photo: NRK

 

 
 Next up is "Reisen til Julestjernen" (Journey to the Christmas Star), a 1976 movie version of an old Norwegian fairy-tale theater play. Very wholesome and with sound morals, this is a veritable who's who of Norwegian theater actors from the 70's hamming it up on the big screen. It is perhaps most notable for having the same actor that dubbed the Cinderella movie in a lead role. The movie was remade in 2012, but the new version isn't even half as popular as the one shown on TV.
 
 

Reisen til Julestjernen. The king in the middle is Knut Risan, the Cinderella dubber. Photo: IMBD

 

And then, at 1:55PM, it is Disney time!

In 1958, Disney made a Christmas special called "From all of us to all of you", with vintage cartoons and clips from animated Disney classics, ending with Jiminy Cricket singing "When you wish upon a star". This show is remarkably popular in both Norway and Sweden, not least because the old government-owned TV stations rarely ran such frivolous things as high-quality animation back in the day. Nowadays, this is a must-see tradition on Christmas Eve.

 

From all of us to all of you. Photo: NRK 

 

After this, you get more children's shows, a family-friendly Christian service at 4PM, and a boy's choir singing Christmas carols at 5PM. At which time most families are digging into the pork ribs with hopefully crispy crackling, or unwrapping presents.

Will these traditions stay, though? They are a remnant of a time when everyone watched the broadcasts from a single TV station. Nowadays, streaming services are taking over. There are also recurring rights discussions, which leads to a worry that Disney+ will keep the rights to "From all of us to all of you" in the near future. And the 70's movies are getting a bit long in the tooth for children, who really are the prime audience in the early hours of Christmas Eve. So in a few years' time, the schedule might look quite different.

Still, new traditions come to as well. Given that most Norwegians love slow TV, the show "Ribba - grad for grad" (Pork ribs - by degrees) was first broadcast in 2016 and is still shown every Christmas Eve. This is a broadcast of pork ribs slow-cooking for 7 hours, with yule songs, graphs showing the cooking temperature of the ribs, and lots of close-ups of dripping bubbling fatty meats. Sheer heaven. And you won't get chewy, tough crackling with this recipe. You can see the show here (in Norwegian). 

 

Ribba - grad for grad. Photo: NRK