a whole month of christmas

December 1st.

I kind of hoped this day, this month, would never come; the coming of December makes the end of the semester concrete. In just under 3 weeks until I will be leaving this beautiful city…. it’s unbelievable how incredibly quickly time has passed.

 On the other hand, it marks a beginning: the beginning of Christmas for the Danes. There is definitely a different attitude to the holiday here, and I’m actually becoming a big fan of it. It’s more about celebration and cozy moments instead of one super important day. They’re really into the whole 25 days of Christmas thing — from advent calendars and dated candles (the best image I could find is on the left — you’re supposed to burn down a little bit each night) to the children’s shows that are basically a 25-episode history of Christmas, there are tiny little festivities to be had every day.

The whole season itself is started off with a mini-holiday on today, December 1st. It’s celebrated with a julfrokost (holiday meal) of  risengrød (rice porridge with butter and cinnamon sugar, which is really really good) and the kickoff of the daily christmas shows, among other things. I got to share this meal with the Danes on my floor, and we spent a few cozy hours making paper chains and julehjerter (woven hearts, which are a big symbol of Christmas here; they are quite complicated to make, so I was more of a spectator) to decorate the kitchen, comparing of holiday traditions, drinking glogg and watching the children’s show. Apparently the show changes from year to year… and from what I can gather, this year’s show is about gnomes living in a bookstore who sing rock songs to convey the meaning of Christmas? The whole night was really great, except I had to leave early to go back into studio. Blah.

Basically, though, I have decided that in honor of the Danes and their 25 days of celebration, I will (at least attempt to) post a tiny thing each day that I love about Denmark, Jul, or being abroad in general. So check back every once in awhile!