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HomeArctic blog: Jan Mayen, Spitsbergen → Advent sea­son in Lon­gye­ar­by­en

Advent sea­son in Lon­gye­ar­by­en

Now, Lon­gye­ar­by­en is loca­ted in Advent­fjord, isn’t it 🤪😵‍💫 this is actual­ly not only one of my infa­mous puns, but actual­ly a not so rare misun­derstan­ding. The name Advent­fjord has not­hing to do with the Advent sea­son, but with an Eng­lish wha­ling ship, the Adven­ture, which was the­re in the 17th cen­tu­ry.

But that’s not what this is all about, it’s about the start of the Advent sea­son in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The­re is also a Christ­mas mar­ket here, or rather two, even. Howe­ver, they are a litt­le dif­fe­rent to what most of us may be used to. On two weekends, in mid-Novem­ber and last weekend, the hard-working and crea­ti­ve artists, craft­speo­p­le and ever­yo­ne in bet­ween set up their stalls, first in the cul­tu­ral cent­re (Kul­tur­hu­set) in the town cent­re and on the first weekend of Advent in the artists’ cent­re (kunst­ner­sen­trum) in Nyby­en hig­her up in the val­ley, whe­re the gal­lery used to be some years ago. Unfort­u­na­te­ly no roas­ted almonds and no mull­ed wine, but lots of gre­at han­di­crafts made in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, inclu­ding Eva Grøn­dal from the local pho­to­grapher dynasty of the same name (first pic­tu­re) and Wolf­gang Hüb­ner-Zach from the car­pen­try work­shop Alt i 3 (that’s whe­re the beau­tiful kit­chen boards and drift­wood pic­tu­re frames come from 😉). And lots of other gre­at things. Lena’s decep­tively real cho­co­la­te fos­sils, awe­so­me! To name just one more exam­p­le.

Christ­mas mar­ket in Nyby­en

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

And then, of cour­se, the­re is the tra­di­tio­nal torch­light pro­ces­si­on on the after­noon of the first Sun­day in Advent – it is dark, even the street lights are swit­ched off in the area during the event – from the Huset to Santa’s let­ter­box below the old pit 2b, the ‘jule­n­is­se­gruve’ (Santa’s pit). Father Christ­mas is working hard up the­re now, so this old coal mine, aban­do­ned sin­ce 1964, is now lit up again until Christ­mas. And down by the road is the let­ter­box whe­re the child­ren (inclu­ding the older ones, if they want to) post their let­ters to Father Christ­mas with all their wis­hes.

The rou­te con­ti­nues to the cent­re, whe­re the Christ­mas tree is lit. Of cour­se, the­re are warm words, cheerful sin­ging and good cheer and, last but not least, Father Christ­mas arri­ves with his assistants and dis­tri­bu­tes a small advan­ce to the many child­ren.

The Christ­mas tree is lit

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

This marks the start of the Advent sea­son in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, and ever­y­whe­re else too, of cour­se. I wish ever­yo­ne a hap­py and joyful Advent sea­son!

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last modification: 2024-12-02 · copyright: Rolf Stange
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