Merry Christmas!! I have never actually had a christmas in England each year I have always flown over to Denmark to celebrate christmas with my extended family. Having spoken about the usual christmas events and traditions to my friends everyone questions my ones as they are so different to a typical English family's traditions so therefore I thought I would give you an insight into my christmas and why I personally think it is the best time of the year.
Christmas for us starts on the 23rd of December where all of the family meet at my grandparents coming from all around Denmark and of course us coming from England. On this nice we have a tradition of having rice pudding for dinner!! No idea why or what this tradition is about but everyone in Denmark has rice pudding for dinner on the 23rd! How strange! Furthermore in the evening we all get together and drink homemade mulled wine called "glögg" and eat pancake balls called "æbleskiver" and play board games to late at night. Every year in my family we play a danish trivial pursuit game entitled "bezzerwizzer" which is all about Denmark which us Brits always lose especially when playing England vs Denmark. On this evening each year is Home alone 2. Between the 22-24 each home alone is played on the danish version of ITV so on the 22nd is it home alone 1, 23rd home alone 2 and 24th home alone 3. The country apparently just loves it!
The main christmas day is the 24th December which is the european equivalent of the 25th December but that for us is our boxing day which is a whole other story. But on the 24th it is the mayhem in the kitchen day with all the food being prepared and cooked (we had to use our neighbours oven because we had so much food) yet each family member is put with a list of things they had to do that day in order to make the day run smoothly. For example my job was to lay the table, put all the presents under the tree, find santa's outfit and wrap presents. We do this throughout the day however a lot of the time we also play board games and card games and everyone eats a lot of quality streets. Our christmas starts at 4pm when we all sit down and watch the annual "Disney's christmas show." We all sat down with our gin and tonics and watched the 50 year anniversary of the show which includes episodes from Snow white, Donald Duck and Peter Pan. When we all sit down together regardless of the age of the individual that is when christmas truly begins.
After the show as we usually have many little ones and the danes like to eat early we start sitting around the table and start eating as much food as our heart desires. Typically in Denmark this includes turkey, goose, sausages, caramelised potatoes, red cabbage, brussel sprouts and many more things. However because of the many vegans or lactose intolerants etc we had many vegan dishes including a stew type thing and falafel. We all sit and chat and drink wine while talking and eating around the dinner table. After we have our big meal the food doesn't stop and it is time for dessert after a short washing up break. In this break we also put the presents under the tree if that is your assigned job otherwise you help with prepping the table for dessert. Dessert is a competition of who can eat the most "risalamande" which is a creamy almond pudding. However eating dessert is a competition because there are 3 whole almonds hidden in it and if you find a whole almond you win a present. After this we again clear the table and slowly head to the living room where we gather around the christmas tree. In Denmark as we celebrate christmas eve santa comes to your house and delivers the presents himself. However for santa to come you have to sing and dance around the christmas tree! So as tradition we sing Danish songs and dance around the christmas tree and even do a sort of conga around the whole house!! After this we give out the rest of the presents and then youngest first opens all of them and we all watch each other open their presents. From there we play games and talk until late and we start going to bed ready for the next day.
Like I mentioned earlier the 25th December is our boxing day where for some reason it is a tradition to have Asian food so today we are having an spicy indian curry. We always go to my uncle and aunties house and gather there and today is the day of games and especially the most important part of today the game called "pakke log." This game is a chance to get more presents! You wrap up loads of small things (basically from the Danish version of pound land) and you put in the middle of the table. Then a dice goes around the table and if you roll a 6 you get a present from the table. When all the presents are gone that is when the competitiveness begins and a timer is set and until that timer goes off you steal presents of each other if you get a 6. It gets very competitive and all my family members each year gang up on my uncle (as tradition.) From there we just play more family games and relax a bit and eat a bit more almond pudding and then we mosey back home.
Then on the 26th December is our last day of Christmas. This is the day where the really extended family come to us and we have a massive 2 course lunch which is normally a fish starter and like ryebread with different toppings for main. Oh and it always has a lot of snaps involved!!! Then we play even more board games! And we also do our classic walk around the beach. From there we relax and have down time after the stress of being so many of us and talk about our plans for next christmas.
Exciting news that I have checked in to my flight to France which I leave in 3 days time and I have a window seat! Heading to 80cm snow and with my new christmas presents of 4 sets of thermals I am ready!! Just haven't thought about packing at all!!!
But I am on my way and ready and rearing to go!
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