It is after 10 pm on Christmas Eve as I write this. Just tucked the girls into bed, Craig is asleep on the couch and we are waiting for Santa to arrive. We had a nice day including a walk through Dyrrehaven Park and the girls and Craig played games while I made Hungarian Mushroom Soup. We went over to the Wendelt's house for a Christmas Even celebration at 4 pm. They are American and have a daughter in 3rd grade with Molly. There were 4 other American families and 1 Scottish there, all with children in primary years and mostly young boys. Quite a scene. After drinks and delicious American type foods (including my soup) we played 3 rounds of "white elephant" with each family deciding on keeping on giving away. We drove home on absolutely desolate streets. Most, if not all Danes are celebrating really big tonight. Christmas Eve is their big night when they light the tree, dance and sing around it, feast, drink heavily and give presents. Many go home to their parents in the other islands.
Tomorrow, Christmas Day, we will wake and see what Santa brought, hopefully not before 6 am. We'll have a nice breakfast at home, then visit a Catholic Church that has an English mass and back home for games, family time, movies and a roast pork dinner. We're going traditional Danish dinner: roast pork with the "crackle back", potatoes au gratin, braised red cabbage, and rice pudding with cherry sauce for dessert.
We're all feeling a little out of sorts about Christmas. Even though we have all the necessary decor and all, it's just very strange being in a new place and trying to recreate traditions. Craig and I are o.k. because we know that a place doesn't necesarily make the holiday, but the spirit. But children dont' quite get that. They just want what they are used to. That makes them feel comfortable. It is not the same as being home, that's for sure. We are so far from it. Often, the less communication makes it easier on us. That way we don't know what we're missing.
We had a Hannukah dinner party with some new Dutch friends on Sunday night, the first night of Hannukah. We made and ate too many latkes, as usual.
Our holiday will be a combination of highlights, shopping and relaxing: jsut the right amount of activity mixed with pleasure and laying around. We'll celebrate Molly's birthday on Sunday/Monday 28th/29th then leave for Switzerland on the 30th for 5 days.
We wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah and a Blessed New Year.
Love and Light,
Mary Jo, Maya, Molly and Craig
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We still feel 'out of sorts' with the holidays here. After a few years of tinkering with it we found that what we needed was not to recreate what we used to know, but to really feel around where we are and do what is needed. This means that this year, we have dropped a whole load of traditions and ceremonies and really concentrated on what will 'work'.
But that isn't to say that we celebrate the christmas occasion on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas day. We light lunched early with nearest and dearest today, drove home while there was still light, and the children were tucked up in bed in an anticipatory hush after hanging their stockings before 9pm.
And they open their gifts in the morning, and only one each from relatives the night before.
We don't feel we have missed out, and in some ways our celebration feels 'better' because it is more all embracing and not confined to one rigid tradition.
We are a multi cultural, multi belief family and our holidays are bound to be special. What didn't work was trying to make them conform.
Happy holidays to you :)
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