#danishchristmastraditions #christmasindenmark #danishculture
Hi! I’m Kelly, an American in Denmark. In this video, I tell you my 9 favorite Danish, Christmas traditions, and show you lots of pictures of the different Christmas items from many of our Danish Christmases over the years. You’ll learn about Danish, Christmas songs, decorations, and fun traditions. Thanks for watching!!
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Don’t forget to leave me a comment and tell me what your favorite Christmas traditions are where you live. Be sure to let me know where you live!!
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Do you follow my blog? If not, you should really check it out! I really like to share more details of how life has changed since we moved to Denmark. Check it out here: www.mynewdanishlife.com.
There is a great post on how the Danes count down to Christmas! Check it out: https://www.mynewdanishlife.com/countdown_to_christmas_in_denmark/
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Pictures Used:
DR1: https://www.dr.dk/drtv/dr1
TV2: TV2 on Twitter
Ramasjang: https://www.dr.dk/ramasjang
Ultra: https://www.dr.dk/ultra
Nissebanden: juleweb.dk
Elf on a shelf: https://amzn.to/2sUV7AF
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My New Danish Life is a lifestyle and travel blog and YouTube channel with the occasional sewing tutorial and camping guide. I love to share all the things that make me who I am, which is an American mom in Denmark who likes to travel and be creative. Come along on one of my journeys by reading my blog or checking out another video. I hope to make motherhood and/or expat life more bearable for those who are struggling. With a little bit of tolerance and compassion, we can get through this…hopefully with a bit of humor! 😊
Thanks for being here, and Take Care! -Kelly
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47 Comments
I hope you all have a great Christmas this year and don't let the grinches out there ruin your holiday spirit! 🙂 I know I won't!
So….donut holes…they've been around for years.
You are wonderful 🙂 I love your observations.
the candles is a representation of the sun and it is the return of the sun that is the most importent aspect to the celebration of midwinter. and then came the religion and dismantle the old ways, but like the candles and the tree, some has survived the "slaughter". : ))
btw the tree represent mother earth, the sun and the earth is lovers, you know. : () ))
We lost my father in law this year who was the only one who knew the words to Foot foot der kommer tovet
Is there any way you might have the written words to this song that you could share it a sight that has danish songs that I can look up the ones he always led us in
do you live near Aalborg in jutland ?
Also its very common to hang small Danish flags in garlands around the tree.
We are very proud of our flag “Danebrog”.
Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II has a christmas calender on the webside for The Royal Danish Court and you can also watch it on Instagram. She makes a new story each year.
My favorite memory from my childhood Christmas is when the tree sulle is lit everyone was asked to walk out of the living room and wait in the hallway while dad lit the candles on the tree. When all the lights were on on the tree, the electric light was turned off and we were allowed to enter the living room … Seeing the tree lit in a completely dark living room was fantastic and for me the best thing about Christmas … That and that singing around the tree in the dark room gives me a sense of togetherness in a dark time where we long for bright and warm days. I am not particularly Christian, for me it is more the pagan in the feast of light than the birth of Christ ..
For the benefit of of foreign viewers you should mention the making of the braded harts to hang on the christmas tree.
Nisse and elf are two different things. Elf = elver, elvere lokkede bl.a. mennesker. Elvere har hule rygge. I suggest you go ask a librarian to sort out this mystery and I promise you a totally new world of old mysteries will open to you. ❤️
Hello Kelly, I've always been fascinated by my Danish heritage. I came to Denmark three years ago and feel in love with it. Thank you for sharing your American/Danish traditions with us.
Yeah, real christmas trees here. We do it the Grisworld way 🙂
I guees, you also can get Danish things, in Solvang California.
Thank you once again for sharing your impressions of how we celebrate Christmas. I feel you have really embraced our traditions.
Let's see… Growing up on Long Island as you know, there was just the four of us. Mum would make decorations for the living room, the dining room table, and one for the dining table in the kitchen. She would also make a big bowl/platter with tangerines, nuts, confectionary etc for the living room, and make sure we had an advent candle holder. During December, it would pretty much be and American Christmas – especially with the anime films Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the rednosed reindeer, and Santa Claus is coming to town. On the 24th er would have dinner in the dining room – eating off the fine china and using the silver cutlery. It would be the traditional toast duck, red cabbage, both white- & caramelized potatos, the stuffing (diced Apples and prunes) and a deliscious gravy. Dessert was of course Ris a la mande. Afterwards, – an hour or so, we would walk around the tree singing Danish carols, and then er would distribute the presents and open them.
Years later, when we had moved back, we would enjoy those Christmas lunches, "hygge" with family enjoying Gløgg and æbleskiver. Back then (in the very late 70s and up through the 80s) er had much more snowy Winters making the experiance so much more enjoyable.
There's so many great Christmas calendar series like Theo og den magiske talisman. Since about 2009, DR has been cranking out more and more serious and high budget productions. I'd like to really recommend to you "Pagten" from 2009 but especially Tidsrejsen from 2014, which was insanely cute and exciting, suspenseful and even really romantic – and about time travel. But also about family, which is a big Christmassy thing I'd say. I'd say it's probably the best one ever made in fact!
The first Christmas calendars that tried to be more serious, though, were of course Jesus og Josefine from around 2003 on TV2, and probably Absalons hemmlighed from DR which I think was in 2006. It's funny, it seems like it used to be like TV2were doing the serious higher quality shows, but then, something must have changed. One year, I don't remember which, they put out one called "Mikkel og Guldkortet", and I felt it was very boring and uninspired. And it looked extremely cheap too. It was also tainted by one actor's sex crimes – he was of course cut out, luckily. Ludvig og Julemanden was pretty good, and so was the sequels, but they were still weirdly childish compared to for instance Jesus og Josefine, which had revolutionised the whole genre and even got a movie. The same thing happened with Jul i Valhal, a Norse mythology-based Christmas calendar from TV2 that I think came after Jesus og Josefine. It was also really high quality – not as high, and not as serious, but close to it. At the same time all the ones coming from DR were like Nissebanden and that kind of stuff – very child-friendly. Buit, like I said, there seems to have been a kind of "switch" around 2009-2010 and on. The one this year is kind of weird, though. I miss Tidsrejsen and wish they'd just rerun it :/ The new Tinka Christmas calendars from TV2 look really good, though. Seems like they're taking the right steps lately.
Thank you
ind imellem kommer "fasten" og ikke festen……
Thank you for this, my mothers family originate in Denmark (Jutland) but I was born and raised in Australia. It's great to learn about Danish Christmas traditions 🙂
We did our honeymoon in Solvsng CA…”little Denmark” in the USA!
Tak!!
Er jeg den eneste der følger at stortset alle der ser hins vidjoer er Dansker?🇩🇰
Im danish☺😊🙃
So glad you like Kim Larsen's christmas album… but no Christmas without John Denver and Bob Dylan's christmas albums too …. I am danish, and a subscriber to your channel , and
I like your approach to the differences between your old, and your new country, So thank you for that 🙂
We have a Christmas tradition when we light the candles on the tree me and my siblings go to our room and then we come out to the livingroom when my dad had lighted the tree and it’s so pretty and it’s just so hyggeligt😁
America in general does not actually have a traditional Christmas celebration. Americans celebrate their own family traditional celebration based on ethnicity. Like Asians have their own tradition, Europeans have their own etc.
Christmas memories – back in my childhood, mom and dad told us, that santa could not come on Christmas eve to our house, because he had so many places to visit, instead he would come at the night between little Christmas eve and Christmas eve, to decorate our christmastree and the living room to where it should be, and we kids was not allowed to see it until the morning of Christmas eve ( twentyfourth of December ) I loved it so much I woke up hours before I normally did, and I could spend hours just to watch the tree and the totally Christmas decorated living room. I can still recall the feeling, when I decorate my own tree as a grown up :-)))
Actually Christmas lunch is an old tradition which goes way back before the Danes became christians. In these times the winters was long, dark and cold, so people needed to get feed up, before the winter really sat in. The Vikings celebrated winter solstice ( Yule – wheel ) which turned and times became lighter, even though the worst part of winter was ahead, so they celebrated, and feasted and ate and drank to get fat, thats where the " Christmas lunch comes from " fattening up for the hard winter ahead of you :-))
A child is born in Bethlehem or Et barn er født i Bethlehem is a very traditional Christmas carol as you mentioned it. The Kim Larsen version is a pop version, and its ok, but I prefer the traditional one :-)) – I could not find it by any single artist, so this is the version which they will sing at the churches – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnr33rhqo2c
My wife is 25, I´m 26.
Each year december 1st. I buy her a julekalender and a teddybear. Why? because thats tradition.
The best part of December is sitting at the morning table with my morning coffee, a calenderlight lit on the table, while she is opening her julekalender. That feeling can only be described as "hygge".
Can you sing few easy danish Christmas songs with lyrics… as you did with the birthday song..
I want to surprise my in-laws at Christmas as I did on their birthday
Hi from Virginia! I found your video while doing some searching for info on Danish Christmas traditions. I’ve been listening to the audiobook “Living Danishly” which is what started me on my online journey:-) Thanks so much for sharing your fav traditions. We will def be incorporating nisse and lots of candles into our Christmas traditions this year!
All danes know nissebanden and Pyrus and there is more that one "season" of each.
When recommending æbleskivepander, I think you should include a link to how to make/ bake them. This task have brought me to tears 😭 and my boyfriend had to make the rest. Now I just buy the frosen ones and heat them with a bit of steam in the oven. 😋
https://youtu.be/h1RXGltx4SI
Jeg er dansk, men har boet i Schweiz i mere end 30 år. Mand og barn har aldrig boet i DK. Sjovt nok er det de samme ting som vi holder fast i her. Kalenderlys, rigtig juletræ med rigtige lys. Og vi danser om juletræet med den lille sangbog, også når den schweiziske familie er her. Vi ser julekalender om morgene via internet, og var meget begejstrede for Theo. Vores datter er 15… men ved juletid bliver vi alle børn igen. Jule maden er også dansk. Christmas og weihnacht er meget tæt knyttet til kristendom, og julen er jo egentlig hedensk, tilpasset kristendommen.
Just a little recommendation for you and you'r kids. check out https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrus_(serie) It is a series focused around the history of christmas (jul), the elf (nisse), Santa Claus (julemanden). And the last one is about old fairy tales. The first 3 you should watch as well, if you want to know more about the traditions we have, as they describe them pretty good.
The series are made as Advent calendar shows for the kids 🙂
it's fun how we have something we eat at certain times on the year like as you said æbleskiver in winter and then we eat koldskål in the summer and i love both things so much
The “julekalendere” on television used to be a lot more Christmassy, and I’m actually a bit annoyed with the new ones
By far the best Calander show, Pyrus, it had four seasons and the songs were all massive jams
i still watch christmas calender shows. i got a few on dvd : ) im 36
As a Dane, christmas is my favorite time of year!
Kim Larsen R.I.P 🙁
Im from denmark and the show you talked about is accually Theo and the magic talisman in english
Hi, Kelly! Thank you so much for talking so nicely about my country. Often when travelling in America people tell me that I live in a socialist country. That hurts my feelings a little bit. When I think of socialist countries I think of the Soviet and the former East Germany. And I certainly would not of my own free will live in any of those countries ! You are a great ambassador for Denmark, Thanks!💚
i dont know if you know but kim larsen died the 30 september 2018
Pakkespil and risengrød was some of my favorite stuff as a child 🙂