Glædelig jul og godt nytår!

Hello, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Or as they would say it in Danish, Glædelig Jul og Godt Nytår!

Okay, so for starters, Danes like to say they love Christmas. And I believe them. In some aspects. To clarify though, they love Christmas in the way of celebrations. I wouldn't say they go all out with the decorations and the Santa spirit.

They have what are called "julefrokosts." It is essentially translated to "Christmas lunch" though they can be held invariably throughout the day and can vary in traditions of celebrations. It is called Christmas lunch, though has almost no relevance to actual lunch.

What is it? Well, it varies. Sometimes it is a lot of people playing what they call "pakkeleg" and drinking Christmas schnapps. Sometimes, if you attend a kid friendly version of a julefrokost, it is just people playing pakkeleg. Well there is also always eating involved as well, from roast beef, to hvidkål or rødkål (white or red cabbage), to LOTS of different fish types. They have "sild" which is Danish for herring (actually not too bad), and "lachs" which is Danish for salmon. I even tried smoked eel. It was served on top of rye bread (rye bread in Denmark? No way), and there were scrambled eggs put on top of the eel. I thought it looked good as it was going around the table, and when it got to me someone told me it was called "eel" in English. At which point I hesitantly took a small piece from the large platter and politely took a small bite, all while discreetly thinking that it definitely looked a lot more appetizing before I knew what it was. That small and polite bite later led to less subtle and less polite bites however as I devoured my piece of that eel. It was delicious.

They also have a traditional food called risalamande. It is rice pudding with cherry sauce on top. The tradition in it being, you put one single almond in the pudding bowl. Whoever finds it in their portion of the risalamande gets a prize. I haven't found the almond but boy have I eaten my fair share of this fantastic food. Denmark also has a Christmas food called "æbleskiver" which is essentially just so out of this world incredibly delicious, I just.... can I just have some right now?

*Further clarification- pakkeleg is a game I will for 100% certainty be bringing home with me (along with risalamande and æbleskiver). It is where you have a dice, and everyone has a toy that they bought. You put all the toys in the middle of the table, and each time someone rolls a 6 on the dice they get a present. Once all the presents are gone someone starts a timer and if you roll a 6 on the dice again you can start stealing peoples presents. Once the time is done you have what you end up with; some are lucky and end up with lots of presents, and some are unlucky, like me for example, and end up with nothing. Well, there goes 50 kroner. But its really fun so either way...

So in the form of celebration - Danes love Christmas. However, they do not set up their Christmas tree until the 22nd or 23rd of December, do not hang Christmas lights, and from what I have observed, feel very decorative when they put tiny "nissemænd" (elves) in the windows of their homes and call it good. They DO, however, have traditional Christmas countdown shows, and your Christmas is NOT complete if you do not have your Christmas calendar countdown, which is essentially an opportunity to eat a piece of chocolate every day for the 24 days leading up to Christmas. Luckily for everyone else, and arguably lucky for me, due to my procrastination to buy a gift for a pakkeleg, someone received (almost) all 24 pieces of chocolate from my Christmas calendar. Woops. (Not sorry that I saved all the twix bars, those are my weakness and I will be as stingy as I please.)

The 23rd I had my host mom's brother's daughter over to bake American Christmas cookies with me, and her niece with us as well. We baked snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies (Danes have never eaten snickerdoodles and this actually happens to be an inside joke with my first host family). That was very fun and if I do say so myself, tasty. My host family liked it as well, thus meaning we have two out of three host families that like quesadillas, snickerdoodles, and compliments of their Christmas presents as well, cheezits!

The 24th (yesterday) my host family had 15 people over for a celebration. Danes open their Christmas presents on the 24th as well, and later dance around the Christmas tree while holding hands in a circle. If this does not scream "traditional white people Christmas movie" to you, than I don't know what would. So there we were, 15 of all us family members (my host moms side of the family) singing Danish Christmas carols (I silently sang the "la la la's" because I didn't know the words), holding hands and dancing around the Christmas tree. Although I must stop your visualization there because there was no room around the tree, so we ended up dancing around the white dining room table, and *almost* going up the stairs. From my vantage point, it looked quite complicated...it was fun though.

The 25th (today) my host family had 20 people over for a celebration. It was the 15 that were there for the 24th, plus a couple extra. To be perfectly honest, I actually always kind of thought that if I had a party consisting of 8 or more people it was a really large party. Not anymore. I later skyped my parents in which we opened each others gifts over webcam, and talked.

The 26th (tomorrow) my host family is going to their summer house which has a name that I cannot spell nor pronounce. I believe it goes something like: Lillemøller. Not that it was an important detail per se, I just thought I'd enlighten you. New Years Eve and New Years day we are back at the summer house with ANOTHER CELEBRATION.

January was supposed to be very calm, but then I went and filled every weekend in my calendar with something else to do.

*First weekend: birthday/Goodbye parties*
*Second weekend: making Christmas cookies* (I know the timing is a little off).
*Third weekend: friend comes from Belgium*
*Fourth weekend: going to Copenhagen*

Time is going WAY too fast. It honestly scares me how fast time is going by. Was it not JUST New Years of 2014? Did I not JUST get picked up at the airport by my host dad?!

Anyway...

Vi ses!

Thanksgivings, bag packings, etc...

Hellooooo,

Since I have last written, I have attended three thanksgiving dinners (and I'm not even in the United States...), successfully spent my months Rotary allowance on (almost) nothing but coffee, and tried to figure out how it could actually be possible that I have seemingly less clothes than what I initially packed for Denmark.

And, as an extra bonus for me, I have also dreamt in Danish. It essentially works the same as dreaming in your native language, only its 100% cooler when you wake up and realize you just dreamt in a foreign language.

I actually woke up that morning thinking "darn. It was in English again." And then I realized "Wait. Wait nope. That was in Danish. I just dreamt in Danish." I was happy.

I attended three thanksgiving dinners which is significantly more than I ever attend in the U.S, one of them being one that I actually made for my host family. It was a little bit lacking in all of the traditional foods such as turkey (that costs like an arm and leg and a couple extra kroner, so no way was I buying that), so I just settled for green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. With the green bean casserole I obviously had to substitute the American "Campbells mushroom soup," and the mashed potatoes were severely lacking gravy, seeing as how I didn't have any turkey. However in the end, I'd say that what was an incredibly foreign interpretation of thanksgiving turned out pretty good. The pumpkin pie was a success as well, according to my youngest host brother. It now has popular demand. He looks up at me after taking his first bite of pumpkin pie (*ever*) and goes "Grace. FANTASTIC." He wants it for his birthday. As well as I would presume quesadillas...cheezits...he likes American food. My host mom told me she never knew "cake" (there again with the "kage") made out of pumpkin would taste so good, and my host sister ate it first thing when she came home from school the next day.

And then, three days later, I made the final touch to my (rather horrid) packing job, and switched host families.

113 days, two overly stuffed suitcases, one backpack, a travel bag, a box, some gummi støvlers, and a Christmas calendar (?) later, I begin part two of my exchange. I am increasingly concerned at how I will ever get all the things I have accumulated here in Denmark back to the U.S. Especially if I've accumulated all this after only three months...let alone the other eight.

*Mom, I still don't know how to pack. You'd probably be appalled.*

For those who may recall the much awaited post that came in April entitled "I HAVE A HOST FAMILY" I have been in fairly often communication with my first host family since than. I spent the better half of my child psychology class period last year talking with my host sister when we weren't technically supposed to have electronics out (whoops, did I say that out loud...?), and the occasional email from one of my host parents. So you could say I knew them fairly well once I got there, and after almost eight months of communication with them, you could say I know them pretty well now.

I have thanked them already, however at the risk of sounding overly thankful (if they read my blog) I just want to say again how grateful I am to them for taking me in, especially when all they knew about me at first was essentially on an essay I had written before I turned my application in to Rotary. I will always remember how much fun I had with them, and as my days go by with my new family I find myself remembering all that was special with my previous, and I know I have a growing appreciation for all they did. I like to think that three and a half months ago when I arrived in Denmark, I entered a house, and later left what I now call a home.

My new host family is very sweet as well. I have two host brothers, one who is 18, and another one who is 21 and studying in Copenhagen. (Eller, København.) OH, and get this. They speak a different dialect of Danish. It is called Sønderjysk. It is a mix of Danish AND German, seeing as how Southern Denmark is close to Germany. And the best part? It is hard for some native Danish speakers to understand. Let alone foreigners. Who are now learning regular Danish and a dialect. I now have a new appreciation for the word impossible. Skål.

Vi ses.