It all started in my own living room.
I’m Beth. I created this tradition when my kids were little, as a way to encourage kindness through a season that seemed to get louder and more crowded every year.
When we started having children, my husband and I wanted to weave his Norwegian heritage into our family traditions. It meant everything to his Bestemor, who left Norway for the United States in the 1950s and carried her Norwegian Christmas close to her heart, especially the tradition of the Julenissen. She even crocheted a little Julenissen for us as a wedding gift.
We wanted our children to grow up knowing those traditions, along with the ones from my Italian family. My side came over from Italy, so in true Italian form, those traditions found their way in mostly through food: homemade pasta and meatballs for Christmas dinner, Italian nut roll for dessert, and our yearly Feast of the Seven Fishes gathering, which is never complete without a platter of homemade pepperoni rolls. Two heritages woven together into one set of traditions our children will always remember.
We wanted December to feel the way it did when we were young, nostalgic, slow, full of family and togetherness, instead of a countdown of things to buy. So a little door appeared on our wall, and the notes started piling up outside of it.
It worked. It became the part of Christmas my children asked about first. So I wrote and illustrated a book to share our tradition with other families, and I paint every door by hand in my studio in North Carolina.
