Holiday Decor and Folklore of the Nisse

 

Mr. Chocolate and I come from very different cultural backgrounds, yet we intersect in Scandinavia. His mother was fierce about the origins of her Norwegian ancestry (despite it having been several generations back), which dominated his upbringing. I lived in Denmark in college. So, when we married, I had a love of many Danish and Scandi traditions and he loved their annual tradition of the Nisse coming to visit the night before Christmas Eve. We've kept that tradition going throughout our marriage and raising our son. 

If you're unfamiliar with Nisser (plural), which is what they're called in Norway and Denmark (Tomte) in Sweden, here's some background:

The Story of a Cultural Icon

As he learned it growing up, they're mischievous elves who in return for leaving little gifts, get very cranky if rice is not left out for them. Being a Creative, when we adopted this tradition, I made a production of it. When our son was small, I'd leave notes written by the Nisse indicating whether he was happy with the rice dish we left out. We left it in the same spot every year, and while currently, we've stopped that since the boy is a man now, he and I still do Nisse gifts and act silly about it. 

When I got a new SVG from Craft With Sarah's Countdown to Christmas daily free file, it inspired the idea for this project. 

Supplies:

• Sturdy Box
• Cardboard Scraps
• Misc. Embellishments: Icicles, Greenery, Wreath
• Acrylic Paints
• Hot Glue and Glue Gun

I started with this empty box bottom I'd been using to hold some stuff. You want a good sturdy box that can stand up. 

I cut some strips of scrap cardboard to use to cover these gaps in the box. I put one on each side of the front, and then on the sides. 

I happened to have a couple extra Dollar Tree icicles leftover from another project I'll share this week, and glued them on each corner. I wanted to keep this rustic, in keeping with the folklore origin, so I went with a palette of brown, white, and evergreen. I made the roof out of scrap cardboard. Attached with hot glue and angled each side to meet in the middle which I joined with more hot glue. 

I used the dark brown to dry-brush the front and sides of the box. I grabbed a white paint pen and doodled a design.

This was also a great way to use up some paper scraps. I grabbed some that went with my theme and used them for the door...the thing that started all of this! 

I didn't cut all of the layers from Sarah's file. After all, I wanted this to be rustic and simple. I put the door together using foam squares to give it some depth. 

I had one of these chipboard pieces left over from another project so I dry-brushed it with white and attached. I also found an "N" in some leftover alphabet stickers, so I subsequently added it on top. The wreath is a resin piece from my mystery stash but a small bottlebrush wreath would work too. 

I painted the wreath green, then dry-brushed with a little white, and cut some of the branches from a Dollar Tree Everygreen pick and glued them to the corners. I also had a DT Reindeer ornament from another project, which I glued to the front. I thought I was done but I showed it to Mr. Chocolate (who loves it) and he suggested a sign. Back to the craft stash! I had this little snowman from a Michaels post-season sale. Drilled a hole in his head to hold a piece of bamboo skewer to which I attached the sign. He came up with a play on words that could mean the Nisse has an Inn or the Nisse is in, since in our version, the Nisse neither spells nor writes well. 

So now this will go in our designated Nisse Spot and we'll see what he or she leaves this year! 

 Glædelig jul!