Welcome to My Danish Christmas Advent Calendar! Join me every day in opening a new door. Once again, I’ve got a host of goodies to share with you – traditional Danish Christmas recipes, traditions, songs, games, decorations, crafts and landscapes… So sit back, relax and enjoy!
9 DECEMBER
Last week I showed you how tomake some heartsand today we’re doing another quick craft – kræmmerhuse (cones). Which – along with paper woven hearts – are a common decoration hanging on Danish Christmas trees. Very easy to make – just ask any Danish nursery kid… Giant ones, tiny ones: you can use them in lots of ways. Make a large version, fill it with a gift to give to a friend. Hang them in your hallway or in windows. Or, as we usually do, on the Christmas tree – filled with nuts, pebernødder, a clementine or some konfekt (homemade sweets). Buy you may have to refill them…’cos pesky little nisser (elves) have a habit of empyting them when you aren’t looking! 
I was round at my BBB (Best Bathing Buddy) V yesterday for our annual Klippeklistre day – the day we get together before Christmas to eat lots of småkager (biscuits) and æbleskiver (Danish Christmas donuts) and make Christmas decorations. Klippe means to cut and klistre means to stick. And here I am, dear readers, wearing my red dress – specially for the occasion!
Our kids spent most of their time in the kitchen, rolling and cutting out cookies from brunkage dough…
And a very hyggelig afternoon and evening it was too! 🙂
But as usual, I digress! To make kræmmerhuse you’ll need a piece of paper or carton. Wallpaper works really well for this so, if you have any offcuts lying around, now is the time to declutter them. 😉 Draw a circle (using a small or large plate as a guide) and cut out.
Fold the sides of the circle in, so you have a pointy bit at the bottom and a large, open end at the top. It’s entirely up to you if you want a very open cone… (I stuck a paper doily on the back of my red circle, to give my cone a bit of ‘oomph’.)
Or perhaps you prefer a more streamlined, longer, slightly more closed cone. (Please note the very Chrismassy fingernails of my other BBB, H!)
Use a big dab of glue or a piece of tape to hold it together. If you just want to fill it with sweets to give to a friend or neighbour, then you can stop here.
Otherwise you’ll want to add a handle for hanging on a tree, door handle or from the ceiling. Cut out a long thin strip of paper (always cut longer than you think you’ll need, don’t ask me how I know this!) and glue/tape the handle to the inside of the cone.
Ta da, done! You can now start adding glitter, lace, sequins, glansbilleder (scraps), ribbon, buttons or whatever takes your fancy in order to jazz it up a little. Here are a selection of the ones we made yesterday…
So, now that we have some kræmmerhuse, all we need is et juletræ (a Christmas tree). But – as we’re in Denmark – and will have a real fir tree (um, no plastic please, we’re Danish!) that won’t be happening until the week before Christmas…
Don’t forget to check back here tomorrow when we open the next door!
Diane 
Dear Diane, thank you very much for your lovely advent calendar! I already enjoyed it so much last year! I love Denmark, but as most of my experience is from summer holidays, there is a lot of stuff about the other seasons that I didn't know. Thanks for sharing!
Best wishes,
Frida
You're welcome, Frida! Denmark is wonderful in the summer but dark and cosy in the winter 🙂