The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

Christmas is not the same without a good old Christmas dinner. However, the dinner might be different after all. A Danish dinner for example or an entire Danish Christmas.

First of all. Danes don't do fake Christmas trees. How do I know you might ask? Well, I am Danish.

My only connection to Montana is a brief visit in the summer of 1994. My wife was so lucky that a fantastic family in Montana said yes to have her as an exchange student in 1990/91, and we were back to visit.

Since then we have kept in touch. They are wonderful people and have become our family. They are in fact a lot like us Danes. You have probably heard of the word "hygge". Danes just love hygge and hygge is really a central part of Danish Christmas. Cozy togetherness, candlelight, lots of food, doing as little as possible and certainty only something that soothes your soul.

If you want a Danish Christmas you first have to get rid of those fake Christmas trees. They are just not hygge. Most Danes go to plantations, Christmas tree plantations, where we cut down our own tree. If we are lucky, it even snows - these days it rains more often. We drag home our catch on whatever mode of transportation we have. Last Christmas I saw a family who had tied their trashcan to the back of their car and put the Christmas tree in the trashcan to bring it home.

The tree is decorated with Christmas ornaments. It can really be anything. Some families – well some wives – have strict rules about the colors of choice to go on the tree. Others don't. The only rule in our house – well, my wife's rule – seems to be, that you should put so many decorations on that you have a hard time actually seeing the tree.

Most families have ornaments on the tree that the kids have made in kindergarten, sometimes it's really ugly – but you know, the kids made it – and that per definition makes it wonderful. We also put strings of small Danish flags on too.

On our tree, you can also find our children's first pacifiers coated with silver and special ornaments that my grandma made. As I said, anything goes. Other ornaments my wife bought at the Disney Store in Paris. She just loves Disney. Many Danes do. And every Christmas Eve at 3 o'clock half the country gather around the TV to watch the Disney Christmas Show on Danish TV1.

We watch the same cartoons every year. Donald (in Danish Anders and means duck) lose a snowball fight to his nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie (in Danish they are called Rip, Rap and Rup). Chip and Dale (in Danish Chip and Chap) – the chipmunks - drive Pluto mad, and Lady and the Tramp eats spaghetti with meatballs somewhere in Italy.

Every - single – Christmas. And we love it – it is hygge. We always look forward to the big surprise – the trailer for the Disney-movie which is released during the holidays so we can flock to the movies to watch it and have some more hygge.

The tree is put on a stand and placed in a bucket of water – that way the needles don't fall off so easily. On top there is a star, silver, gold, doesn't matter.

Candles, I forgot those. They have to be real candles; it just does not seem right with those strings of lightbulbs. It also add a little excitement to the whole Christmas, especially if you – like us have three Cocker Spaniels. Can we make it through Christmas without one of the dogs knocking over the tree or having a tail catching fire?

It varies when we put the tree up. For some it is the first of December, for others it is a matter of finding the time somewhere between work, Christmas shopping, homework with the kids etc., you know how that is.

Just a few more lines about Christmas before Christmas. We celebrate "advent". That is the last four Sundays before Christmas Eve. We make a wreath and place it on a table, preferably on a tray that cannot burn. Four big candles are placed on the wreath; we have candles with a wire in the bottom so they stick. The first Sunday one candle is lit, the next Sunday two are lit and so one. I guess we are crazy about candles, because we also have our calendar candles. A nice decoration with whatever green you have from your garden has a candle in the middle. The candle has numbers from 1 to 24. And then we burn it, every day we burn down one number to keep track of the days till Christmas Eve. It is usually done at breakfast or dinner.

The Christmas Calendar Candle.

Jumping back to the tv. The big tv channels all have a Christmas calendar with twenty four episodes shown at the same time every day. It started out as something for the children. Nowadays we have Christmas calendars for adults too – no, it is not adult movies. Usually they are quite funny. One with a drunken old sailor and his criminal out-of-a-job junkie son. The theme song is something about yellow snow – I guess you have to be Danish to find it funny.

Merry Christmas Everybody

PS: Maybe it was a bad idea to let me write about Danish Christmas. I hope I haven't offended anyone. I probably forgot some things. But I'll give it another shot next week – if the editor will let me and you haven't complained too much.