Gratulerer med fødselsdagen! That's how people say "Happy Birthday" in Norwegian. Since I've been in Norway for a few months now, I've had the opportunity to celebrate a couple of my friends' birthdays. Tromsø is a very international city, so I've been lucky to learn about how people celebrate their birthdays all over Europe. Today, however, I'll focus on Norwegian birthday traditions.
I've really enjoyed learning about how people celebrate their birthday in Norway. Norwegian birthday celebrations are very fun, especially the Norwegian birthday song! It's much longer than the English birthday song that we sing. It's called Hurra for deg, which translates to "Hooray for you". The end of the song has some dance moves that everyone does around the birthday person. Do you think we should add dance moves to our birthday song?
Another Norwegian birthday tradition is to display the Norwegian flag. In Norway, the flag is not flown unless it is a national holiday or a birthday.
One thing that suprised me about Norwegian birthdays is that they don't have a specific "birthday cake". People will bake cakes or other sweets, but there's not one cake that people associate with birthday celebrations. Do you have a favorite birthday cake?
