A Danish Christmas!!

We caught the train to Roskilde on the afternoon of the 24th of December, it was an easy 40 minute trip which was good! One of the trainees from Dave's parents farm, Heidi, picked us up at the station and took us back to her place. She worked on the farm in Bordertown for almost 12 months, back in 1991-92, but luckily for us both she and Dave have seen much more recent photos of each other so he easily recognised who we were meant to go home with!!

In Denmark, Xmas is celebrated on the 24th (in the evening) so we were there in time to experience the whole lot! Instead of taking us back to her house straight away, Heidi took us to her local church for a Xmas service. The whole thing was in Danish (obviously!) and for an hour we sat there not understanding a word!! It was toasty warm though so we didn't mind at all!!

We got back to her house and met her 2 kids, Kristian and Louise (pronounced Louisa) who are 10 and 8, and also met her ex-husband and his mum. They were all very welcoming, and the kids were so excited about us being there, but couldn't speak a word of English!! you could tell they both had so much to say, but couldn't. it was frustrating as we wanted to talk to them as well, but Danish is impossible!

For dinner we were treated to a very traditional Danish Xmas meal (apparently around 90% of the population would have had the same meal as we did!! wonder what Mary ate!!). We had roast pork and duck, red cabbage done in some special way, potatoes done normally as well as done in sugar so they had a caramel glaze on them, bread and crisps!! It was really yum! We also had a couple of bottles of french red wine which was delicious! Then we had this strange stuff which was like rice pudding, but with vanilla, lots of cream and sugar mixed through it. It also had sliced almonds through it which made it extra tasty, but of course Dave couldn't eat it. It was served with hot cherry's and a cherry sauce. Dave got 2 different flavours of ice-cream so he was happy! There is a game where if you find a whole almond in the dessert you win a prize, so both Louise and Kristian won prizes of chocolate and shampoo and toothpaste!!

By this time the kids were hardly able to contain their excitement (although Kristien was too cool for school being 10 years old!!!). As part of their traditional Xmas festivities we lite the candles on the tree and then danced around it singing Xmas carols. Dave and i followed along, but of course didn't sing as we had no idea what they were even singing!! Then it was time for the presents!! Kristien and Louisa ripped into theirs straight away and were very excited about everything they received. Dave and i were also spoilt with some gorgeous Xmas tree decorations from Gorge Jensen (i cant spell it in Danish - sorry!!). Louisa also made us a card and a box with decorations all over it.

Presents out of the way we sat down to coffee and traditional Danish sweets while the kids assembled their latest toys! All in all it was a great experience, but exhausting!! We finally fell into bed around 11pm!

On Xmas day the Danes usually visit all their family for lunch, but instead we watched Louisa horse riding and Kristien on his bike. The have made a track in their yard with hills and water obstacle so they were riding around that. It was so cold, but they didn't feel it at all and were having a great time! After lunch (again traditional Danish food; herrings, bread, eggs, tomato, cucumber, ham, salami, pate, salmon etc.) we went for a drive around Roskilde to visit Heidi's brother and see his farm. We then went to Heidi's mum's place where the whole rest of the family was. We tried some of their Danish food as well which was amazing. a pork braise thing and some patties of some kind!! They also introduced us to their tradition of drinking schnapps!! lots of it too!! I don't know what it was called but it wasn't at all like the yummy flavoured schnapps we have at home, it tasted like burning!! it definitely kept us warm though, all the way down!! Apparently that one is for the boys, but i was having none of that and kept up with the rest of them! We then tried the "girls" schnapps which tasted like really really weak cordial with alcohol in it!! Dave also had some traditional Danish Xmas beer which he enjoyed as well - i think because it is stronger than normal!!

That evening we had more Danish food, hot dogs!!! We also had pork patties, and seafood filled pastry cups, more Danish beer and wine!! We watched some Danish xmas movies which were entertaining even though we couldn't understand a word of them and then went to bed ready to catch the ferry up to Århus where we were getting picked up by another of Dave's families trainees (called Flemming) and driven to his place in Nimtofte where we'll spend the next couple of days.

Hope you all had a great Xmas, I'm sure it was totally different to ours, so we'll have to share stories when we get home!!
luv Al and Dave
xxx