Christmas Eve
In Denmark, Christmas Eve is the day we regard as Christmas. It's the day where we exchange presents and the following two days, which we call 1st and 2nd Christmas Day, are mostly reserved for Christmas lunches. We don't have a Boxing Day, neither do we open presents in the morning. After a huge dinner on the 24th, it's time for singing and dancing around our Christmas tree and subsequently the opening of presents.
I didn't manage to stick to my schedule about posting on all four of Advents but I did manage three out of four, so not that bad. However, I do have one more Christmas story to tell and that is the one of my Christmas Eve.
We live just outside of Copenhagen and every other year we drive to Jutland to spend Christmas Eve with my grandmother. This year was our "turn" as opposed to when she spends Christmas Eve with my aunt and her husband and their six joint children. However, I had one thing that I needed to do before we embarked on the two hour car journey.
It's slowly become a tradition in my stable that we deck ourselves and our horses out in Christmas gear and go for a short walk in the forest. This year we broke all records and fourteen horses and riders showed up! We were only out about half an hour but it was so lovely and we definitely looked very festive in our red get-up.
Quickly after we returned, I rushed to get home to the already packed car and we drove off. We played loads of Christmas music namely; Pentatonix's That's Christmas To Me album, Michael Bublé's Christmas album and a playlist of all the old traditional Christmas songs.
We got to my grandmother's at about 3 PM and the festivities begun. As always, she tried to stuff us with food almost before we got in the door. Oh loads of eating we did that day. I'm feeling full just thinking about it. As for the dinner, we had way too much food (but isn't that the rule with Christmas dinners?) and though we tried our best, we still packed tonnes of leftovers in the fridge afterwards.
I was a horrible photographer that day as I think I only snapped about five photos in total. I must have been too caught up with the family fun times. However, I did get one of the tree when all the presents had been stacked underneath it. Because we dance around it, the presents need to stay fairly close to the tree and we narrowly managed. Mind you the many presents are only for five people!
After choosing one Christmas song each, as per our tradition, we sat down feeling content. Our two dogs thought our dancing was very exciting and tried to join in with the festivities, maybe a bit too much as they kept jumping around us.
I divided out all the presents amongst us and we took it in turn opening one at a time. I realise that it must be the absolute nightmare of someone that doesn't like opening presents in front of people but no one in our family minds.
It was quite a wonderful Christmas, although a bit hectic. It's a time where we get to see family members that we haven't seen in forever and even though it can be awkward at times, it's also nice. So is spending special time with your closest family with whom you can be totally and unapologetically yourself. It's about making time for those family moments and having no one worrying about their day-to-day life but instead just paying attention to what's happening in the moment. Oh, I do love Christmas and all of its traditions.
I didn't manage to stick to my schedule about posting on all four of Advents but I did manage three out of four, so not that bad. However, I do have one more Christmas story to tell and that is the one of my Christmas Eve.
We live just outside of Copenhagen and every other year we drive to Jutland to spend Christmas Eve with my grandmother. This year was our "turn" as opposed to when she spends Christmas Eve with my aunt and her husband and their six joint children. However, I had one thing that I needed to do before we embarked on the two hour car journey.
It's slowly become a tradition in my stable that we deck ourselves and our horses out in Christmas gear and go for a short walk in the forest. This year we broke all records and fourteen horses and riders showed up! We were only out about half an hour but it was so lovely and we definitely looked very festive in our red get-up.
Quickly after we returned, I rushed to get home to the already packed car and we drove off. We played loads of Christmas music namely; Pentatonix's That's Christmas To Me album, Michael Bublé's Christmas album and a playlist of all the old traditional Christmas songs.
We got to my grandmother's at about 3 PM and the festivities begun. As always, she tried to stuff us with food almost before we got in the door. Oh loads of eating we did that day. I'm feeling full just thinking about it. As for the dinner, we had way too much food (but isn't that the rule with Christmas dinners?) and though we tried our best, we still packed tonnes of leftovers in the fridge afterwards.
After choosing one Christmas song each, as per our tradition, we sat down feeling content. Our two dogs thought our dancing was very exciting and tried to join in with the festivities, maybe a bit too much as they kept jumping around us.
I divided out all the presents amongst us and we took it in turn opening one at a time. I realise that it must be the absolute nightmare of someone that doesn't like opening presents in front of people but no one in our family minds.
It was quite a wonderful Christmas, although a bit hectic. It's a time where we get to see family members that we haven't seen in forever and even though it can be awkward at times, it's also nice. So is spending special time with your closest family with whom you can be totally and unapologetically yourself. It's about making time for those family moments and having no one worrying about their day-to-day life but instead just paying attention to what's happening in the moment. Oh, I do love Christmas and all of its traditions.
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