Today is one of the darkest days of winter — and an important part of the Scandinavian Christmas season: Santa Lucia Day. All over Nordic Europe, little candle-bearing Santa Lucias are bringing light to the middle of winter and the promise of the return of summer. To capture the celebration for our European Christmas special, we traveled to Drøbak, where Santa Lucia Day brings everyone out to dance around the trees…with their crowns of real candles. Just up the fjord, in Oslo, we had one night t

I find inspiration in how other countries treasure their independence and freedom, as we do ours. And today — Norway’s Constitution Day — I’m thinking of my uncle Thor, who lived through the Nazi occupation of Norway. Uncle Thor took me into Oslo’s grand City Hall to show me the huge “Mural of the Occupation” and share his story of those dark days with the visual support of powerful art. Walking slowly, with a soft voice, he narrated the story scene by scene in the present tense — as if the mura