The Holidays

Things got a little complicated with the blog this month because our basement Devolo “Powerline” internet connection stopped working. We’d been using it to keep the printer and our NAS “wired” to the router, rather than having them on wireless (they both predate the Orbi system that smothers the whole house–and property–with strong, reliable wifi). So when the Devolo died, the NAS and our printer went offline.

I won’t bore you further with the details: suffice to say it was for want of technical tools, rather than want of will, that delayed the December blog post this long. So long, in fact, that here I am about to publish it on Groundhog’s Day, when I ought to be getting ready to publish the January blog.

Sic transit gloria bloggi.

But let’s start with a delicious December pancake.

I don’t remember when or why Trine chose to treat us all to Danish pancakes for dessert one night, but she did, and they were spectacular. They’re more like crepes than pancakes, but with some jam and sugar as you see above — man, that’s a good dessert.

Just one of the many ways we try to make the intolerable gloom of December’s perpetual darkness bearable.

The picture below is very obviously from December 13:

(Reminder to American’s: December 13 is Skt. Lucia’s Aften.) As usual there were processions galore. Maddie’s entire grade did three or four processions over the course of the day — some at school, one at a nursing home, and one in Bymidten. That one was late enough that I was able to attend. It was a very cold evening, and it was raining a bitterly cold and misty rain, but the kids were undaunted.

Maddie got to be the “Lucia brud,” or “Lucia bride,” a couple of times in the course of the day. That’s the Lucia who leads the procession and has four candles in her crown. Normally there’s just one Lucia bride, and I believe Maddie did get to be that “one” earlier in the day, but for the evening procession she was one of eight “brides” (one pair from each third grade class) who took turns leading the procession in pairs.

In addition to the procession, they also gathered under the clamshell at Bymidten. (It’s nothing like a clamshell, it’s just an elevated platform with a glass roof–you’ve all seen it before a thousand times in pictures or in person–but it cracks me up to think of it like the Boston clamshell, as if now and then Arthur Fiedler shows up in Værløse to entertain us.)

I would have had better pictures, but for most of the part where Maddie was leading I had no camera, because it was so cold my iPhone died.

The Christmas season in Denmark is a professional gauntlet of candies and cakes and pastries popping up in the office. The one below was a gift to PensionDanmark’s call center from one of their partners or vendors: it looks like the usual mountain of candy. . .

…but when I zoom in, observe: the whole thing was made out of fruit. Yeah, sure, a little bit of chocolate snuck in, but only as frosting on the fruit.

The crazy thing? That pile of fruit disappeared faster than any of the candy or cake that hit the office. It’s like people were relieved to have something relatively healthy they could snack on.

(We have fresh fruit available to us every day of the year, so it’s not like fruit is a novelty in itself–but we don’t get a lot of kiwis, strawberries, or melon balls on a regular basis!)

PensionDanmark’s julefrokost was held off-site this year, at a restaurant just a little further down the harbor from our office. I was not emceeing this year, so I got to relax and enjoy it. We all ate and drank too much. On the train ride home I was treated to the spectacle of a young man barfing into one of the train’s trash receptacles for twenty full minutes. I took pictures of his bright orange barf, but I’ll spare you.

Now and then Maddie is possessed by enthusiasm: for one shining period in December, she brushed Didi several times a day. I include the picture because based on the rapidity with which that particular enthusiasm burned out, its a sight we probably won’t see again.

We did get a little snow one day about a week before Christmas.

Exactly one week before Christmas Eve we were shopping in Bymidten in all its holiday charm.

There was a treasure hunt for kids.

And a snow dome that kids could actually get inside.

Later that day we got our Christmas tree in Hareskov.

I still yearn for trees taller than me, but my pretty blonde roommates have conspired against me and determined we should have shorter, more manageable trees.

So here we are: Third Advent already!

In the course of our decorating binge that night, the stockings went up.

Wait — what’s that note on Maddie’s stocking?

I think I already mentioned that this year’s TV julekandere (Christmas calendars) were Tinkas juleeventyr and Snefald. They were both good, but I think Tinka turned out to be our favorite this year.

Molli rarely watched with us. I found that a little saddening (is that a word?). She was, after all, the one who taught me to cherish the coziness of cuddling together every evening of December to watch the spellbinding adventures unfold day after day. Thankfully Maddie is carrying the torch for this tradition, but I suppose we only have a few years left. . .

It was during the week before Christmas that Molli twisted her ankle badly at handball. Her recovery was helped by her mother the physical therapist’s wild technology.

And finally it was little Christmas Eve. . .

And then actual Christmas Eve. . .

Morfar had arrived a couple of days before, and Mormor came up to join us for the festivities as usual, but Jørgen didn’t join us for the first time in many, many years because he was on the brink of becoming a great grandfather! (A justifiable excuse, but we all missed him.)

One of the wines we drank with dinner was the special wine we’d bought the summer of ’16 down in southern France. It was a bottle Stéphane had told us would be best in about 12-18 months, provided we kept it horizontal in a cool, dark place for that long, and rotated the bottle from time to time. So we finally got to drink that bottle, and it was, as he had predicted, tres fin. (It wasn’t crazy superlative out-of-this-world good, but it was unquestionably the best wine I’ve ever tasted in its price range. And I’m not generally even a fan of Languedoc-Roussillon wines.)

I have no pictures of our Christmas Eve dinner from this year, but we had the same exact dishes we have every year, so if you really miss watching the same cast of characters sitting around a table eating the same meal, you can just scroll back to previous years.

So we just fast forward to the fire-hazard period of the evening. . .

Note the cookies and empty glass prepped for American Santa, who will fill the stockings overnight (because Danish Santa still apparently can’t be bothered).

The shot above is the girls with their pillows from Nana, made from materials taken from her own wedding dress and those of her mother and grandmother.

Another Christmas Eve treat:

I had to stay up later than I wanted to to see those results, but that’s a screenshot of the moment at which I clinched the championship of one of my fantasy football leagues.

By the time I woke up Christmas morning, stockings had already been ransacked and Maddie was fully engaged with her droid.

Turns out, this actually was the droid we were looking for. . .

Everyone was enjoying their Christmas presents. . .

And we all enjoyed our “second Christmas day” lunch down at Mormor and Jørgen’s.

Jørgen had some Christmas challenges for us.

And that was that! Christmas had come and gone.

We had a little time to enjoy the week off. . .

And then suddenly it was all about handball again.

Maddie’s team participated in a tournament. (That’s her with the ball, below.)

Also here. . .

Later that day I walked Didi down to the lake because I’d just learned the new pier had been installed in our old swimming hole.

Looks like it’ll be a lot of fun come summer, doesn’t it? But hold that thought.

Meanwhile, let’s go back to day two of Maddie’s tournament. They’d qualified for the semi-finals of the B bracket.

And they won!

Next it was on to the finals. . . which they also won!

Unfortunately, having won the B bracket championship meant they had to stick around until the awards ceremony. So they watched all the other age groups and brackets complete their finals.

…and then at last received their honors.

While Maddie was playing her tournament, Molli was off at an altogether different tournament in Lund, Sweden.

We were able to follow her games via an app, in real time. . . unfortunately they didn’t go so well. And the bus ride home was apparently even worse: she sent us this photo of their bus:

And suddenly it was (if we’re going by the photo log of my camera) New Year’s Eve!

As usual, the queen gave her speech from Amelienborg at 18:00 sharp.

There had been a last-minute flurry of speculation that she might be using the occassion of her traditional New Year’s Eve speech to announce her intention to yield the crown to her son the crown prince. She did not.

Our menu was, once again, fondue.

We stretched dinner out as long as we could. Once we were done, Molli Malou took off for a party at her friend’s house (just down the street, and she promised to come back to us right after at midnight).

Meanwhile, Maddie practiced blowing her horn as we gave Didi an very late walk. (We made sure Maddie understood that walking around the block blowing a horn at 23:00 was permitted only one night per year!)

At 23:40 — same procedure as last year — we tuned in to Dinner for One, the British comedy sketch that aired on German TV on New Year’s Eve in 1963, and has been aired every New Year’s Eve since then all over northern Europe.

(By the way, there’s a short and interesting little BBC documentary about how it became popular outside of the UK while remaining virtually unknown within the UK on YouTube as video 7j9wF31jUCM. Sorry I can’t post an outgoing link from within this blog, but if you search that code on YouTube I’m sure you’ll find it.)

At midnight we all leaped into the New Year, then watched the Danish Girl’s Choir sing.