Formalities

We were invited to my husband’s cousin’s ex-wife’s house for dinner one night when we were living in Norway. I didn’t know her at all, but Kory did. I was happy to attend because I like seeing the inside of Norwegian houses and I was thankful I didn’t have to cook.




One Norwegian custom we were formally unaware of, is just how very dressed up we must be for such an occasion. Previously we’d just eaten dinner at relative’s houses, so the same rules apparently don’t apply there. We found out on that particular night, we were completely under dressed. Everyone else came looking mighty fine, but embarrassingly so, our sloppy Pacific Northwestern lifestyle came shining through.



Another formality we learned was proper protocol when meeting someone for the first time. When someone enters a room, everyone stands up to greet them. If a person already knows them, they just shake hands and say, “Takk for sist,” which literally means, “Thanks for the last,” which is short for, “Thanks for the last time I saw you… I remember it so well and have such good memories of it.”



If a person doesn’t know the other person, they shake hands and they both say their names to each other with a standard greeting like, “Så hyggleig,” (which means, “So comfortably nice” – but the “to meet you” is implied and not always said.) Then that scenario gets repeated with every person they don’t know, so the person who just walked in repeats their name to everyone there. I found it was much easier to remember names when I heard them over and over, so I liked that formality.



It’s also customary to bring a hostess gift, usually a house plant or a bottle of wine. Fortunately, we’d followed protocol on that one.



There’s really nothing like having dinner and dessert in a Norwegian’s home. There is a lot of emphasis on the beautiful table setting as everyone owns nice china, silverware, linens, and centerpieces. The coffee table is also set for dessert so everyone moves into the living room and pulls up chairs around it after dinner. It’s also set with fancy china, special dessert spoons and burning candles. It’s the kind of ambiance that I’m not sure was ever part of American culture - at least not the crowd I’ve hung with - but then, I was raised in a trailer court, so it’s hard to compare anything to that. The only formality I was taught, was, when spying on the neighbors, at least have the decency to turn out the lights so they didn’t know we were doing it.