Danes spend the entire month of December celebrating Christmas, and they have Christmas dinners throughout November and December with their different groups of friends. Yesterday I got to experience one. Laila, Tine, and I picked up Tine's cousin and aunt from the train station sunday morning, and we all drove up to Nykøbing, the small town by the ocean where their sea cottage is located. We went to a Christmas shop and looked around, and it was really festive and a lot of fun. Then we went to another Christmas sunday market consisting of local artists and all kinds of art for sale. That was a special treat. We stopped by a fabulous metal sculpture art gallery in a house that was in itself a piece of sculpture right next to the harbor, and sculptures no large than a human head would cost over 1000 dollars. It was crazy, but they were beautiful. By mid-afternoon we drove down through the countryside for about an hour to the Tine's cousin's house. Sadly the day itself was very gray and cold and almost rainy, and we watched the sun set through the clouds around 3.45. At Rekke's and Anetta's (cousins) house, we had all kinds of little Danish Christmas chocolates before sitting down to appetizers of appelsquer with jam and sugar, and its basically like pancake dough in a ball. pretty tasty. We had Gløgg to drink with it, which is a Danish hot wine with raisins, almonds, and spices in it, and they drink it at Christmas time, and actually it was really good. During this time, Anetta and Rekke presented me with my birthday present and my going away present. I was amazed that they had gone to the trouble of buying me a present when they hardly knew me, and it was exceedingly generous of them. They got me some warm purple yarn (because she had seen me knitting one time) for a scarf, some Danish homemade candy, and a calendar for next year with pictures of meaningful places in Denmark. It was great!
We had some time to wait before the boys in our family drove down for dinner, so they broke out the Christmas crafts. They taught me how to make these beautiful origami paper stars, which they make hundreds of to decorate their houses and Christmas trees, which they go cut themselves. we also made some beautiful jewelry, and it was extremely hyggeligt. (cozy) Det var Hyggeligt. Then came the real Christmas dinner. Pork roast, with crispy skin on top which the Danes love (skin=disgusting, I tried it) red cabbage slaw with almonds and mandarin oranges, caramelized potatoes, cooked red cabbage, and gravy. The entire meal was delicious actually and extremely Danish. For dessert we continued the traditional food and Anetta served us rice pudding. They buy this special rice and cook it in milk/cream and then add vanilla to it, and it is served with a cherry sauce on top. It is traditional that in the bowl of rice pudding you place one almond, and whoever ends up with the almond wins a prize. we were all eating and eating and no one had yet discovered the almond. Tine and Rekke had already spread out the rice on their plates to check for it, and as I got towards the end of my serving I kind of stuck my spoon all around in it, but I didn't find anything either. As I was taking my last bite, I bit down right onto the almond and was so startled that I just exclaimed to everyone that I had found the almond! they made me spit it out to prove it, and then I got a prize of 3 chocolate santa clauses. So exciting. We stayed for another few hours relaxing, drinking tea, and watching the proposal before we drove home. It was yet again an amazing time. Danes are very good at having parties.
And actually I attended another party on saturday in celebration of Thanksgiving. Lizzy's host sister Anne Sophie spent a year in the U.S. (she's 17) and wanted to celebrate her new favorite holiday this year after having such a good one last year, so she invited 10 of her friends and told lizzy that she needed some americans to complete the experience. So several of us made our way to Lizzy's house saturday with our pots and plates of food (on all the transportation--I just know the people around me on the trains wondered why I smelled like green beans. All of the Americans sat interspersed among all of the Danes and we ate an amazing stuffed turkey with a layer of bacon on top (Dane put bacon on everything), 2 types of mashed potatoes, including purple sweet potatoes, green beans and cranberry sauce (which I made) and then tons and tons of dessert. The meal and company were fabulous, and we had cookies, cheesecake, fruit tart, pumpkin pie, and fruit in cream for dessert. we were stuffed to the brim. we were there for like 5 or so hours and eating for most of it. Danes really are awesome. They are so eager to show us their culture and help us experience the important parts of ours.
I haven't seen the sun in 8 days because the sky has been covered in a thick blanket of low lying clouds that sometime rain and sometimes snow. we got our first snow this weekend, and it lasted for 2 days, so I got to have snow at my Thanksgiving, and I also got to celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving within 24 hours of each other, which was awesome.
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