Norwegian Xmas, Mythical Creatures, Snowball Art, Reindeer & More: Endnotes 10 December

Every Friday, we celebrate the weekend — and all the reading and relaxing and daydreaming time ahead — with Melissa's favorite book- and travel-related links of the week. Why work when you can read fun stuff?!

This post is part of our Endnotes series.

Those houses on the bank of a fjord in Norway look like a magical Christmas village, no? It’s not hard to imagine reindeer trotting through the afternoon mist or elves dancing in the streets at night. From tasty things to eat (lutefisk! småkaker!) to outdoor activities (cross-country skiing! snow hikes!) to cozy traditions (candles! Christmas table!), it’s not Christmas in Norway until these things happen. (Need a little Norwegian Christmas in your life? We loved the series Home for Christmas.)

• Whenever David and I are cooling our heels in a line for something, I practice reciting the phonetic alphabet. Is it time to rethink the whole shlemiel? ‘The options for certain letters—Q and X, we’re looking at you—are not great, but come on. Q as in Québec is a truly awful choice, with multiple pronunciations (‘keh-beck,’ ‘kweh-beck,’ and I even heard a Brit in a radio interview say ‘kyoo-beck’).’ You can read the alphabet used by NATO and the FAA here.

• 100-percent yes to this fancy bookshelf.

• For the love of all that is good: Yes! The name of the translator belongs on the cover of the book. So why is it such a big deal for publishers to make that happen?! ‘For decades, translators in the U.S. have been underpaid and largely ignored, working in the back rooms of literature even as they play a central role in enriching Anglophone letters. Part of that may be starting to shift — translators are beating the drum for their own visibility.’

• Here are Christmas movie locations you can visit in real life, including spots from The Holiday, Home Alone, Love Actually, Elf, and so many more.

• In 1960, Hallmark invited the artist Salvador Dali to make some Christmas cards. It went about as weirdly as you expect.

• Just in time for a New Year’s resolution to write more letters by hand, here’s a green guide for stationery lovers. Pens! Pencils! Writing papers!

• Of course you want to read about a map of Mythical Creatures in Europe. Sleipnirs and zaratans and bukavac… oh, my!

• Two fantastic things made even more fantastic together: Tilda Swinton and libraries. Click through to enjoy them all.

• This collection of paintings and photos of snowball fights is a delight. Did you know there was a snowball fight at the University of Edinburgh in 1838 that lasted two days? And there’s a painting to commemorate it? There was also a freshmen vs. sophomores fight at Princeton in 1893 with bruising results. I’m partial to this one, myself:

• Sort of related: Can you identify these snowy scenes around the world? (Dave and I did it together and scored 11/16.)

• Have you ever eaten a Garbage Plate in Rochester, New York?

• These two merry-makers stole my heart. Don’t sleep on the ‘Mystery’ destinations offered on the list of Merry-Maker Excursions!

• This online interactive museum of a turn-of-the-century New York tenement building is very, very cool.

• We’re huge fans of the book store Word in Brooklyn. Not only is it an adorable shop stuffed full of carefully curated books, but the people who work there are also incredibly helpful. The last time I visited, a book caught my eye. My suitcase was already overweight, so I couldn’t buy it then. And I neglected to write down the title, thinking I’d remember it. Reader, I did not. So I sent Word an email with a vague description of the book and where I’d seen it in the store. They replied in just a few hours with the title and author — and that book was The Waiter which ended up being featured in our podcast episode about restaurants. Which is a long way to say: Word is a fantastic independent bookshop, and you can give a book subscription from Word to your favorite reader!

• This reindeer fills us with holiday cheer. Hope it does the same for you!

May you be so overcome with joie de vivre, you must prance.

Top image courtesy of In Green/Shutterstock.