Our First Danish Christmas and New Year!

Happy New Year, friends and family! God Nytår!

This was our first Christmas and New Year's outside the U.S., and I think Zac and I were both worried about whether the kids would enjoy the holidays without being surrounded by friends and family and chaos.

We were also not sure how to celebrate. We're in kind of a world between worlds here, if that makes sense. We liked some of our Christmas and New Year's traditions from years past, and it's always comforting to do things that are familiar. On the other hand, we are in a new place with some really fun customs, so we wanted to try out a few of those, too. The result of blending the U.S. and Danish holidays was really nice.

Pre-Christmas (21-23 December)

The Christmas season wouldn't be complete without cookies! But do we bake Grandma Debbie's old fashioned sour cream cookies, which we've eaten every single year of our lives for ever and ever, or do we make all the fun traditional Danish holiday cookies: vaniljekranse, pebernødder, and brunkage?

Of course, I chose to do a little of both.

It was easy to find the ingredients for the Danish cookies. It was a little more challenging to find the ingredients for the sour cream cookies. We did finally figure out that you can buy sour cream here, so we were set on that, but I also needed almond extract, food coloring, and butter-flavored Crisco. Forget frosting in a can! Given the general European attitude toward harmful dyes and trans-fats, I was pretty sure I'd be out of luck. 

My shopping adventure took me to many, many grocery stores. I was able to find little bottles in the baking aisle that were colored blue, green, red, and yellow, so even though they looked like the tiny liquor bottles you get on airplanes, I assumed they were food coloring.

I also found something in that aisle called "Aroma" with the Danish word for "almond" written on it, and I assumed this was almond extract. In both cases, I was correct. The butter-flavored Crisco was more challenging. I was at maybe the sixth store I tried, and I spied a weird brick on the bottom shelf. There were two types, and they basically just said "for baking and frying," and the packaging seemed to indicate that they were plant-based fats, so I rolled the dice again. I couldn't find anything leading me to believe they were butter-flavored, but I took what I could get.

We had to sell our KitchenAid before we left the U.S. because it can't take the 220V/50Hz. We haven't replaced it yet, so making cookies was all done with sheer human power this year. It was hard.

The kids were all willing to help out though, and they all grabbed an apron so we could get to work.

First, the shortening, even though it was room temperature, was not soft. Khloe struggled hard to get it evenly into the measuring cup and then to whisk it into the other wet ingredients. We decided it needed to be a little softer and break up a little more if we were going to get successful cookies out of this, so we brought in the Dyson Air Wrap.

Was it designed for kitchen use? No. Did it rise to the occasion? Absolutely it did.

We heated the wet ingredients directly for a bit, but every now and then, the air flow caused some wet chunks to fly out of the bowl, and I REALLY didn't want to get any of them lodged in my fancy hair-styling tool, so we backed that off. Plus, it was kind of melting the sugar and we didn't want to do that either. We started gently heating the exterior of the stainless steel mixing bowl and it did help. We were able to get most of the shortening chunks mixed in, and the ones that were left were pretty small.

The rest of the dough for our double batch came together OK, and then it was time to chill it overnight. Normally, we spray the inside of some plastic cling wrap with cooking spray, mold the dough into two balls, then wrap each one up in a tight double layer for refrigeration. We don't have cooking spray or plastic wrap. (It's possible to get cooking spray in Denmark, we just haven't purchased it. I'm not sure about plastic wrap though...) Instead, we buttered the inside of an old Ziploc bag and shoved it all in there to chill.

Skipping ahead to the next day, the dough was incredibly sticky when we pulled it out to make our cookies. I don't know if this was an issue with ingredients, ingredient mixing, or our awkward dough-chilling style, but it still behaved OK after I floured the hell out of my hands and every other surface it touched.

The kids took turns cutting out cookies, six at a time. We did save our Christmas cookie cutters from the U.S., so we had lots of shapes to work with. We could only cut them out six at a time because Denmark apparently doesn't believe in cookie sheets. I think some of the ovens come with oven-specific cookie sheets, but we have been completely unable to find cookie sheets in store or online anywhere. The ones we brought from the U.S. don't fit in our oven here (except the really tiny one), so we have settled for some kind of bar pan that we purchased in town. It's a couple inches deep, so not a true "sheet," but it's useful anyway.

The first round of cookies ended up pretty overdone. There were many differences between our old oven and this one, so it was kind of expected we would need a trial batch. This oven is small, our old one was large. This oven is electric, our old one was gas. This oven temperature is controlled in five-degree Celsius increments instead of Farenheit so our conversion was approximate. Anyway, the result was crunchy brown candy cane cookies.

We dropped the oven shelf a little bit and extended the bake time 15 seconds and all the other cookies were perfect.

Burnt candy cane cookies vs. puffy perfect Santa cookies.

The final four dozen cookies.

(Also, we ate the crispy candy cane cookies to destroy the evidence and re-stamped nice ones.)

When I was a kid, we bought the Betty Crocker sour cream frosting in a can. They discontinued that decades ago and we've been alternating between the Betty Crocker vanilla and cream cheese frostings. That's not a thing in Denmark, so I found a simple recipe to make our own sour cream frosting with butter, sour cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla. It was hard whipping without a mixer, but Zac helped and the end result was a very good texture. I cut out a third of the powered sugar though because it was already really sweet. (Oh, and because I ran out of powdered sugar at that point anyway...it comes in tiny boxes here and we only had two.)

I could tell Harrison was bummed it wasn't true white in color, but he tried hard to put a positive spin on it. When I started mixing the different bowls of frosting with food coloring, it took a LOT of coloring to even get a very light reddish pink color. We made it work. We made yellow, blue, red, and green frosting.

I was disappointed in the lack of Christmas-y sprinkles available, and they don't have chocolate chips in little chocolate chip shapes here. We substituted normal sprinkles that we sort of made to be Christmas-y, and borrowed some chocolate chunks from Zac's baking stash.

Zac got creative with his cookie sculptures, so then the kids started getting creative. By that, I mean they started making all the circle cookies and Santas into cartoon characters from South Park and SpongeBob. Khloe also made a worm and a super cute Santa Bear. Zac bit the arms off a gingerbread man and made a penis.

The point is that everyone had a good time, even if it was a little different than normal, and our frosting set up really nicely when we stored the cookies out on the terrace.

Next, we tried to make the Danish vanilla wreaths (vaniljekranse). They are tasty little cookies and they looked easy enough. Psssh. I'm so naive.

While the ingredients and process are relatively simple, we do not own a food processor, which was required to make our own almond flour from 75 g of almonds. Zac and I reasoned we could use pre-made almond flour instead. That ended up making our dough a bit drier than it seemed like it should be, but we pressed on.

Once we had the dough mixed, we put it in a piping bag with a star tip. The recipe said you could use a meat grinder for this part, and Khloe told me that her friend's parents use a meat grinder for it, but the recipe also said if you don't have one, you can use a piping bag and some muscle.

I didn't realize how much muscle was required!! Whether it's always that hard to pipe or if it was just difficult because we used the pre-made almond flour rather than making our own, I don't know, but it's a week later and my wrists are still popping and my arthritic fingers are still achy. Thank goodness Zac stepped in.

The force we had to use made it a little tough to control the size and shape of our cookies, so they weren't all dainty little perfect wreaths, but we got 'em!

They tasted really good, even if they weren't quite right. Zac added some pink sea salt to the top of one, and that was really good, too. I did make a very weak aneurysm spot in my best silicon piping bag from the force, but it never blew out!

I bet you're thinking, "What did they do with all those cookies?!"

Even the kids were like, "We shouldn't make the other two types of Danish Christmas cookies because we already have too many cookies."

Well, every cookie was consumed by maybe the 26th or 27th of December, and we didn't give any away, so...oops?

* * *

I spent a lot of the pre-Christmas time buying and wrapping presents for the kids from all the family members. I don't think any of us properly estimated how much shipping between the U.S. and Denmark would be, and none of us really wanted to throw money away, so we decided people would send me money and I would buy and wrap all the presents from everyone.

I had three wrapping paper designs, four colors of satin ribbon, some weird tape without a dispenser, and a mission. I don't think the kids cared about the lack of variety in the wrapping paper or the fact that we didn't have big shiny bows at all, so that worked out OK.

* * *

We woke up to a little blanket of snow on the 23rd, and Harrison raced out to play. He's really good at bundling himself up to go out. Zac joined him, and in no time, they had built our first little Danish snowman.

Vibe stopped by to drop off a tiny Christmas gift for me and say Merry Christmas before she left town. I hung my little wine glass ornament on the tree immediately.

We let Han open an early present because he's been a little mopey lately. In the U.S., he had many toys. He had a Bark Box subscription and he got two new toys each month. We brought two hard rubber squeaky balls with us that he liked, as well as a robust tug toy, but he is only allowed to play with them outside for two reasons. First, they are very hard rubber and he can toss them really hard as he plays by himself. The house here is much smaller than our house in Post Falls, which means the likelihood of him throwing it into an instrument, a plant, the record player, etc. is much greater. We can't risk it. We have so few things and we cherish them all. Second, we are in someone else's home. We can't chance that he'll break one of these old windows by tossing a toy aggressively up in the air, and we try to minimize the impact of his dog claws on the soft pine floors.

Khloe and I found him some "tough" but fairly soft toys at the pet store and wrapped up two for Christmas. We let him open the long reindeer Kong toy.

He was incredibly excited. The reindeer died quickly, because even toys that claim to be tough don't stand up to Han, but we had a very happy dog.

* * *

Another thing I thought would be fun was a family outing. Unfortunately, Zac had to work most of the week and we didn't really want to leave him out of the fun. In early December, I had seen an ad for a local drive-in movie theater, and they were showing Christmas movies during the weekends in December. We couldn't go to Home Alone since it was the same night as our neighbors' gløgg and æbleskiver party, but Die Hard was playing on the 23rd and I knew that would be a hit with the whole family.

I translated all the FAQs from the website to try and prepare well for this. The kids and I had never been to a drive-in movie theater before, and I wanted to be sure I thought of everything to make it a good experience for everyone. The website didn't specifically say what time the gate opens to drive into the area, it just said that you should try to be early to avoid a long queue and ensure you got a good spot. It also said that long queues sometimes delay the start of the movie by 15 minutes or so. We didn't want to be part of the problem, and we wanted a good spot, so we planned to arrive 40 minutes early.

The weather apps all showed a 0% chance of precipitation, but as soon as we stepped out our front door, it started snowing big, wet snowflakes on us. The temperature was quite low and the windows were foggy as we drove. We got to the drive-in 40 minutes early, as planned. The snow kept falling hard.

There was one care in front of us kind of parked in the middle of the road, and no signs indicating what we should do, so we just waited behind the other car as a few more cars built up behind us.

We waited until 30 minutes before showtime, and then someone came up and opened a gate that we could drive down. There was a little kiosk where we stopped to show that we had purchased our tickets, then they directed us to Bio 3, which was the big screen we could see from the road. The snow was definitely not stopping, and Zac was getting anxious about our ability to get up the hill out of the theater.

We drove down anyway. As we rolled into the big field, I saw kind of flat dirt path rows alternating with kind of raised grassy patches. I panicked because I didn't know which one you were supposed to park on. Zac was just like, "I got this."

Kettle Falls had a drive-in, and Zac was experienced. He parked us on an uphill grassy slope a little to the left of the projector shed and we had a nice view of the screen. Well, we would have had a nice view of the screen if it weren't for the snow and the foggy windows. You're not supposed to leave your car running during the movie, but we were increasingly concerned about the foggy windows.

We laid down the backs of the backseat to create a big space for the kids to nest. We had brought lots of blankets and the older kids settled in pretty well. Harrison planned to sit on my lap, so I just pushed my seat back as best I could and helped him get cozy. We passed out sodas and popcorn and candy. I staged a trash bag, some napkins, and some water. We keep the windshield wipers and the defrost going and watched the 0% chance of snow try to ruin our outing.

(There were maybe four other cars that joined us in the field. I guess the queue isn't so intense in the winter months...)

When the previews started, the snow stopped completely, just like magic. We turned off the car, cracked a couple of windows, and it was all good. We had to start the car about four or five times to re-defrost because Harrison and I couldn't see when the windshield started fogging from the passenger side edge, but overall, we were all warm enough and we watched a great holiday movie.

Christmas (24-25 December)

The first part of the day was pretty chill. We finished our insanely difficult cookie puzzle!

Harrison curated a festive outfit for the day and then loaded his stuffed animals into my laundry basket with an iPad blasting Mariah Carey Christmas music. He pushed "The Christmas Bus" all over the house.

Zac and I made a modest but nice dinner. We had roast, Danish browned potatoes, a garden salad, and fresh bread from the bakery.

We set the table with homemade placemats and napkins and made good use of all our designer Georg Jensen serving dishes (gifts from ALK over the years).

We at Christmas cookies for dessert and then moved onto the presents! Our little nisse, Harrison, couldn't wait.

We chatted with my mom and grandma on video and then with Wade and Lisa on video, so it was nice to have some family share the moment with us. I did a terrible job taking pictures, but that's because I was living in the moment. The kids were having a wonderful time and it was nice to see them enjoying their Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning was a hit. Kaden got some AirPods he's been begging for (for years...) and Khloe and Harrison got an electric piano, as they have both expressed an interest in learning to play.

The kids opened their stockings and were excited that "Santa" had located some of their favorite candies from the U.S. The were very happy little cuties. Zac and I helped them get set up to use/play with their Christmas loot, and then we went back to bed. It was  like 6:45 a.m.

When we got up a little later, Harrison proudly sent us a video he made and took himself. Before I had gone back to bed, I showed Harrison how to play "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" on the piano, and he practiced all morning.

Harrison got three games for Christmas: Pass the Pigs (technically, it's the Danish packaging, so Kaste Gris), pick-up sticks, and Castle Panic. We played them a lot.

Then, when the kids were asleep, I sat by the tree drinking a Christmas beer with Zac, and in true Clark Griswold fashion, I smiled in the peaceful glow of the evening and whispered, "I did it."

The weird part (26-30 December)

During the haze that is December 26th through the 30th, I don't know what we did when. It's a blur.

I know Zac and I went grocery shopping. We played so much Castle Panic. We listened to music. Zac and Kaden played Fortnite in the basement. Khloe chatted with her friends online. I wrote up some household job descriptions for the kids (that's another story). Zac and I went for a lot of walks. Khloe took the dog on walks. We made chicken sandwiches and took down the Christmas decorations.

Zac threw away my giant brick of marzipan (they sell giant 400 g bricks of marzipan you can just eat!) because I kept eating a little chunk every day, then complaining that I was itchy all over my body and I couldn't sleep. (Decades ago, I was very sensitive to almond oil getting on my skin and I would break out in rashes that itched like no other. It hasn't been as severe in more recent years, but I guess I'm still a little sensitive.)

I made a marzipan pig.

Zac also found a neat park in Hørsholm, so one day, we took Harrison. It was a super cool playground made of wood and metal. It was set up like a castle grounds with a horse stable, little village buildings, in-ground trampolines, and a big castle stronghold. Unfortunately, the rains had flooded most of the ground and Harrison was only wearing tennis shoes, sweatpants, and a sweatshirt. Two other kiddos showed up in full winter waterproof clothing and had the time of their lives splashing through the muck and water.

There were so many amazing things to challenge the kids: lots of balancing, jumping, climbing, and sprinting opportunities. Harrison had fun but really wished he had worn his boots. He attempted a big move over the water as he played "The Floor is Lava," and it ended pretty quickly when he fell in. His shock wore off and he stayed around to swing for a little while before he admitted he was cold and wanted to go home. We'll definitely go back another day.

Kaden and I also snagged a free Samsung monitor with an HDMI port from someone in the neighborhood, which really improved the father-son gaming setup in the basement.

Oh!! And Zac and I finally binged Ahsoka. God, I love Star Wars.

We went to bed a little later and slept in a little longer almost every day. We cleaned the house and watered the plants. And then it was New Year's Eve!

New Year's Eve (31 December)

Honestly, the New Year's Eves that we've had in the U.S. the past few years have been really fantastic. We usually had visitors at our house, including my mom, grandma, Matt, and Vanessa. Usually, Matt had a friend come over to visit. We'd play games, play guitar and sing, make ourselves sick on Grandma's Merry Mix and cheese ball, watch silly YouTube videos on the big screen, hold foosball tournaments, and drink fun drinks. It was great, and we have some wonderful memories from those parties.

But we're in Denmark now, and my only hope was that the kids would still have a nice time in a more quiet and low-key setting. I had modest expectations.

I started learning things about Danish New Year's ahead of time, and it honestly all sounded very nice and rooted in tradition. As I have learned it:

1. The Danes eat some kind of seafood, traditionally cod, but more recently, any type of shellfish.

2. They open the champagne at 6:00 p.m. to toast and watch the queen's annual New Year's Eve speech to the country. Some people gather outside the palace to be part of the action.

3. They climb up onto the furniture just before midnight so they can "jump" into the new year.

4. They eat Danish wreath cake at midnight (kransekage), my favorite.

5. They set off fireworks to rival an American 4th of July at midnight.

* * *

We did not plan a seafood dinner or purchase fireworks. In the U.S., we didn't really eat dinner on NYE, we just set out a buffet of snacks that held us in a food coma for hours. I tried to mimic this a little here in Denmark. We put out squares of cheese with crackers and slices of summer sausage. I bought a soft garlic and herb cheese, then I battered it in panic, baked it, and dressed it up with chopped rosemary and spicy honey. We got some bottles of sparkling soda/cider stuff for the kids, and of course, we had the kransekage.

We supplemented by baking a small frozen pizza or garlic bread every now and then.

I had been sure to secure our kransekage tower two days in advance.

I tried to make people wait until midnight, but around 6:45 p.m. on NYE, we could tell Harrison wasn't going to make it until midnight, so we cracked it open and snacked on it throughout the evening.

We set up the computer to watch the live stream of the queen's speech, hoping there would be English subtitles. Unfortunately, there were only Danish subtitles, but Zac and I are much better (still not good, but much better) at reading Danish than translating as someone speaks it, so the subtitles were still helpful.

We picked out what we could and spoke it out loud, but the general message seemed to be of unity and thankfulness. There was one moment where I thought the queen was yielding the throne to her son, Frederik, the crown prince, so when the speech was done, I told Zac I thought there was something in there about that, but it seemed so wild and the televised crowd outside the palace had been so subdued afterward, I was sure I had translated incorrectly.

But I was right!!

Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II announced her abdication as of 14 January, 2024 after 52 years of serving the country. She was the longest reigning monarch in Denmark and the first female monarch in Denmark since the 1400s. She was born just after the Nazi occupation of Denmark and was called "the sunshine princess" because she represented a ray of light in dark times. She and Crown Prince Frederik have very high approval ratings from the public.

So after that wild announcement and a beautifully worded speech, the headlines blew up, and I even started getting messages from people in the U.S. about the big news!

We spent the next few hours snacking, playing games, watching Star Wars shows and movies, playing music, recording silly videos, and waiting for the new year. 

Harrison went to bed around 10:40 p.m. Kaden played video games until about 5 minutes before the new year, then he came upstairs to be with us! I was pleasantly surprised.

We were watching Return of the Jedi (Khloe's choice) and wishing we had started it sooner so the fireworks would line up with the new year. Rookie mistake. With one minute until midnight, the four of us climbed up on the couch and kitchen bench, then when the clock struck midnight, we all jumped up in the air, landed on the floor, and shouted, "Happy New Year! God Nytår!"

The fireworks started outside. We had heard a few throughout the night going off around the outskirts of our little neighborhood, but nothing too wild, just pretty lights in the sky.

I should say that Danes are only allowed to buy fireworks after December 15th and they are only allowed to light them off from December 27th to January 1st, so they really go for it. Also, many of the fireworks are made in Denmark, not China. They are absolutely lovely and there are fireworks I've never even seen before!

At midnight, the entire country as far as we could see started setting them off. It was pouring rain, but that didn't stop anyone, and it didn't stop Zac and I from standing outside barefoot watching the show. The lush plant life deadened the noise, so we were surrounded by the perfectly softened sounds of artillery and hundreds of fireworks displays. It's a pretty flat country, so we could literally see all of them for miles.

For a solid 40 minutes, we watched the country celebrate the new year. No horrible mortars or firecrackers or bottle rockets, just the most beautiful aerial fireworks we'd ever seen. After 40 minutes, it died down to a few sporadic (though no less grand) shows, and by 1:00 a.m., most of it had stopped. We heard some now and then as we were getting ready for bed, but again, all very softened.

It was one of my favorite New Year's Eves ever. We witnessed history, we tried new customs, we incorporated some of our old traditions, and we had a non-traumatizing experience involving fireworks displays.

* * *

We hope you all had a happy, healthy, and safe Christmas and New Year's Eve, too!