Welcome back 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!
11 DECEMBER
Are you beginning to gear up for Christmas? We’re dashing backwards and forwards to Christmas events and – eek – are already getting ‘behind’ with our Advent candle! Maybe we need to burn it at both ends? 😉
Let’s talk Christmas trees! Now, where I come from (Scotland) our trees are normally plastic and these days you can even buy them with fairy lights already attached. Plug and play. 😉 Personally, I’d be quite happy with the artificial tree I bought when I worked at the ECJ in Luxembourg many moons ago. That tree has served me (and børnehave ‘creche’) well. It’s green plastic – selvfølgelig. And green in the eco-friendly-buy-once-never-buy-again way. But DDH (Dear Danish Husband) insists on The Real Thing. Despite the cost. [Ouch! Said the Canny Scot.] But, hey ho, it’s Christmas. And the only Christmas tradition he gives a (fresh) fig about… 
Normally we just walk down the road to our local pusher and hand over a small fortune. For something that is going to adorn our living room for approximately two weeks. [Sigh.]
Well, today I decided to cut the crapcost and buy our tree at IKEA. Fresh, not plastic. Not quite as tall as this one, though… C’mon everyone – put your backs into it! 😛
Along with the netting machine, they also have a nifty device for making holes in the bottom of the tree, so it can go straight into a wooden stand…
Did we select the tree in the forest ourselves and chop it down? No! But we paid half of what we did last year. And they even give you an IKEA voucher for DKR 50 (UK£5.30, US$8.40) for every tree you buy…cheap at half the price! Right now our two trees are sitting outside on the deck. We’ll bring them in to the house next week and decorate them with plain white lights. None of those tacky, coloured, flashing ones – it’s not the Danish way! (Though, strangely enough, our neighbours across the Sound, those silly (but lovable) Swedes really like coloured lights/moving Santas/flashing reindeers on the roof stuff.) Some of my Danish friends even do it the old-school way and use REAL candles on the tree. Yep, Health and Safety forgot to make a stop in Denmark! 😉 But I just don’t dare… So we just stick to electric fairy lights. And then add baubles, Danish flags, our homemade hjerter (hearts) and our homemade kræmmerhuse (cones).
Time to light that Advent candleand take a 15 minute break with a nice cuppa and a pebernød or two… Don’t forget to check back here tomorrow when we open the next door!
Diane 