The holiday season in Denmark is definitely different from back home in the best way possible in my opinion. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but by the time we all arrived back from our third travel breaks (my trip to Istanbul), downtown Copenhagen was decorated all over with lights and decorations! And it looks beautiful! Because the Danes obviously don’t celebrate our Thanksgiving, they are free to start celebrating and preparing for Christmas right after Halloween ends. Which means a full on two months of holiday cheer 🙂 What could be better?
All the major streets in downtown are string with different types of lights, some windows are decked out with garlands and lights, and even major streets in the other neighborhoods (like mine, Nørrebro) are strung with decorations! And then of course, there are the Christmas markets at every large square in the area. I’d heard of Christmas markets before coming to Europe but I couldn’t have actually said what they were. Well they are these groups of little booths selling everything from fuzzy slippers to scarves and hats to Christmas decorations and food!! They are quite adorable and I’ve already bought special doughnuts, a cute knit hat, and a scarf from them. (My friend, Elise, also bought me a snow globe from one for my birthday, which was so special for a myriad of reasons.) Most of them also have special aspects like carrousels, little trains kids love riding one, and the one right next to DIS has the biggest Ferris Wheel I’ve ever seen! I love just walking through the markets on my way to class.
And then there is the Danish Christmas pastries, specifically aebleskiver, which is so hard to describe. The best description I’ve heard so far is pancake balls but they are even sweeter and come covered in powdered sugar and jam. Cat loves them too. They are delicious and all the markets sell them along with special Danish Christmas wine called gløgg. This is basically just realy, really good mulled wine served with almonds but I love it. My friend and I went to a gløgg competition at the Glass Markets the week before last (the Glass Markets are this very cool place to eat and shop; it’s two large glass buildings filled with booths serving all kinds of food and goods and they have the best samples!). The contest was a great, fun, and festive atmosphere to be around. And my Danish class actually got to try both aebleskiver and gløgg for the first time when we went to Tivoli together for a field study! Once Halloween is over, Tivoli is transformed into a complete Winter Wonderland and it’s gorgeous. More Christmas trees than you can count, lights absolutely everywhere, Christmas scenes on the stage, and a fountain laser light show on the lake set to Nutcracker music every hour!
Obviously, this is one of my more excited posts and I hope you can feel the excitement I’m feeling all throughout my post, which might be a little over the top…but in all honesty, I do love the festive holiday spirit in Europe, it’s definitely different from the US. And from what I can tell, Christmas isn’t very associated with the religious aspects here, so most Danes actually do celebrate Christmas, if only to join in the holiday cheer and beautiful decorations for the season.
And to top off all the holiday cheer I’ve already been feeling, it finally snowed here a couple weekends ago! I’m from Phoenix and go to school in Los Angeles, so seeing snow fall has been a very rare occasion in my life. I absolutely loved being here for it and walking through the snow storm, despite how cold it was and the snow literally flew into my eyes, which stung quite a bit. In summary, it’s been a perfect holiday season so far 🙂
thecopenhagenexperience 