Children and Reporters: How we celebrate Christmas in Denmark

In the middle of Oct.,all shops begin decorating their windows with Christmas lights and other decorations. They sell Christmas decorations already in Oct.

Last day before our Christmas holidays 20^th Dec all students and the teachers at the school go church,- the doom which is situated in the middle of our city. Each class is ”called out” and all are lined up for giving a big candle to light up the dark on the 600 metres path to the doom. Our students walk 2 and 2 and the younger student goes with a senior student who has the big candle.

The many candles is a wonderful sight in the dark at 8.30 in the morning. Lots of parents join us to church and we have had this tradition for many years by now. I must say,we haven´t had any accidents with all the many big candles, so far.

Last day before our Christmas holidays. Our school tradition.


	Here some elder students are given the candle light by a teacher.

In the doom, our students sing special Christmas songs and our music teachers sing and play as well. This is so fantastic to hear

and ALL students are so excited about this and they all sit very quietly in the big doom, which is totally full this day. Did I remember to tell only our school have booked this doom this day?

Students, teachers, parents fill up the many 600 seats in this doom such a day.

Waiting for Christmas Eve 24th, we´re playing in the snow.

Here is a traditional Christmas tree. Some put candle lights on the tree but due to dogs and small children, many use electric lights on the tree. The gifts are put under the tree in in the morning 24^th Dec.

A traditional Danish Christmas tree.

Christmas Eve 24^th many people go to church at about 4 pm. When they come home, they make the last preparations for the dinner and then we´ll have the traditional Christmas dinner; duck or goose, potatoes, sweet potatoes, chips, and for dessert a kind of a rice pudding; rice porridge with almonds and whipped cream. Her we have to find the almond which is not cut into pieces. The one who gets this special almond gets a small present.

After the dessert, we sing Christmas song while walking around the Christmas tree. Then it´s time for the presents. The clock is often around 8.30 pm. We take one present at the time. Some families with smaller children often end up in paper in the whole living room, but the older you get, the smaller the presents are and the less paper we have. The children play with their presents.

After this we get a cup of tea or coffe and some Christmas candy and then relax. Othen the time is 10.30pm and we are all very tired and go to bed. Yearly the next morning, children are up early to play with their presents and at noon we invite family for a big lunch or we are invited out. The day after the same programme and we´re all full and have put on weight after 3 days of eating.

We spend our holiday by playing in the snow and reading books in front of the fire.

This is our traditional Danish Christmas dinner:

The typical Danish deseert at Cristmas Eve:

A kind of rice pudding with whipped cream, almonds and cherry sauce. (We usually have more bowls with this dessert, but not to get so full before we get the almond, we´ll have a small bowl to eat first....)

Homemade Christmas sweets: