A Great Start to the Month of December

Christmas is Denmark's biggest holiday. Christmas merchandise starts popping up in stores around mid October and by the time December first rolls around full-fledged Christmas mania has begun. It happens over night (literally)! One day you're walking around the streets of your city and everything's ordinary as can be. If you took the same trip downtown the next day you would find real, fully decorated Christmas trees in the squares, garlands and wreathes strung up across the streets and on the buildings, glittering with sparkling Christmas lights. On December first, Denmark almost instantaneously transforms itself into a winter wonderland.

My December first couldn't have been more in the holiday spirit. Saturday December first I attended my first "Julefrokost" or Christmas lunch. Julefrokost is the large meal Danes eat on Christmas Eve (the day they celebrate Christmas). As a result of extended family, most Danes will attend several julefrokosts during the month of December. That Saturday I drove up to a town called Randers, in Northern Jylland, to attend my first host family's julfrokost. Things couldn't have gone better. Half way there the sky opened up and it began to snow profusely. The first snowfall came on December first. It couldn't have been more fitting.

The first layer of snow.

Getting ready to eat.

Now, you have to understand that at a julefrokost three things happen; you eat, you hygge, and you eat some more. From one o'clock in the afternoon, until ten o'clock at night all I did was eat. I don't think I've ever eaten so much food in my entire life. This food doesn't come in small portions either, it's viking sized.  You start with rugbrød, Danish rye bread. There are countless toppings, the most popular being pickled herring of course! Then you move on to frikadeller (Danish meatballs), flæskesteg (roast pork), different variations of rødkål (red cabbage) and needless to say, potatoes. Pacing yourself is an important tactic to survive a julefrokost. You've got to have a plan before hand.

Rugbrød.

Flæskesteg, rødkål and frikadeller. 

For dessert you eat risalamande, which is coincidentally my favourite Danish dessert. Risalamande consists of cold rice pudding mixed with whipped cream and chopped blanched almonds. You top it off with hot cherry sauce and in doing so create a plate of ambrosia, sent straight down from the heavens. There's truly nothing better. There's also a tradition around this anticipated Christmas specialty. The chef always leaves one whole almond in the pudding and who ever unearths the almond wins a small prize. I tried my best, but my efforts were in vain. I finished with no prize, only a sore stomach. But don't get me wrong, it was still wonderful, delicious and definitely worth the stomach ache.

I wonder where the almond is?

Mmmmhh!!!

                                                  I waited all day for this amazing dessert.


At the end of the night we got to watch the first julekalender of the year. Julekalender is a series of special Christmas  TV programs that play everyday from December first until Christmas Day. Danes grow up with this tradition, so it holds a lot of sentimental value.

Inside looking cozier and cozier as it starts to get dark.

Stuffed, sleepy and satisfied, my host family and I headed home around 10pm. It was a slow drive home, on account of the snow that was now falling over all of Denmark. To be brief, we made it home safely and slept soundly as the snow continued to fall outside.

The next morning I awoke and was excited to see a fresh 15cm of snow that had fallen over night. Most of the day was spent putting up Christmas decoration and baking pebernødder, Danish Christmas cookies. This is the second time I've attempted to bake these tasty spiced Christmas cookies and it's safe to say that  I've become a pebernødder master chef!

Happy to look out my bedroom window and find this when I woke up.

The beautiful view from my host family's host, looking over the fjord.

My host sister Julie enjoying the snow.

I also got to attend my first Danish church service, which included a great deal of singing hymns and naturally the lighting of the first advent candle.

Another interesting event that took place was getting to Skype with not only my Mom and Claudia (the exchange student from Switzerland my Canadian family is hosting), but Katrine too. Katrine is my current host family's daughter who is also on exchange. It's funny, because we have practically the same name and we're the same age. Oh, and not to mention that we've almost swapped places precisely. She's living on Vancouver Island (she's living in a different town than my family)! I had the pleasure of meeting her before she left to Canada and now she's over there and has gotten to meet my Canadian family. It's a strange phenomenon to say the least and it goes to show that it's truly a small World. Katrine accompanied my family to Vancouver this weekend, so we decided to seize this remarkable opportunity. Unfortunately there were some technical difficulties, so the conversation was a bit choppy. The fact that we were bouncing back and forth between Danish and English also proved quite troublesome. Overall it was great. Maybe one day she'll take a trip North to visit my family and we can Skype when the connection's a bit better.

This past weekend was an eventful and phenomenal start to what I'm sure will be an incredible month.

Off to enjoy the snow!

Cathryn