One of the ways we celebrate any holiday is by beginning the morning with Ǽbleskiver. These are round-ball pancakes. We dip ours in jam and then powdered sugar. It is a special breakfast, we only eat a few times a year. You need these special Danish cast iron pans to make them correctly. If you want to see the recipe, click here. Then on December 1st, we pull out the Advent Calendars. During the 24 days of Christmas there is a small present hanging on each day of the calendar. Here are our family calendars.
The Danes celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, December 24th rather than Christmas Day. This always worked out well for us because we celebrate Christmas with my husband’s family on Christmas Eve and we celebrate with my family on Christmas Day.
Do you have any special ways you celebrate the holidays?
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14 comments:
I love your blog! And your traditions are so fun. I'm appreciating cultural traditions so much more now that I'm living overseas.
I love those advent calendars.
When our children were growing up we had lots of Christmas traditions. None tied to a certain culture, but handed down through our families.
But now, we are grandparents & our traditions seem to have melted away like early snow. We are having to reshape our Christmas traditions to fit around the hectic schedules of our adult children & their families.
I must admit it takes some of the joy out it for us.
Merry Christmas, Kim.
Jean
http://www.jeanmatthewhall.blogspot.com
Ooh, I love the food shots! Very yummy from the way you described those pancakes, Kim. Sounds a little bit like when I make cornbread muffins, which is also only on special occasions once or twice a year.
We don't have many Christmas traditions . . . yet. I figure once we have kids we'll try to invent a few. :)
I love those pancake pans!
I love the cookie baking - one of my favorite memories from growing up. We make gingerbread men every year.
Mmmm, those look so yummy!
I make my grandma's cookie recipe each year. Last year we had an ugliest Christmas sweater contest at a family gathering, that was funny! Other than that, just lots of family gatherings in December!
We have a Christmas Eve campfire. It's my favorite part of Christmas. There are no lines, no traffic, and no noise. I'll bundle up the kids and my husband reads the Christmas story. Then we sing carols and roast marshmellows. It's wonderful!
What funky calendars--so bright and cheery! We trim the tree while listening to Frank Sinatra and have a couple of advent calendars. We make caramel corn and homemade pizza for Christmas eve dinner.
Sounds like fun. When I lived in CA, we used to visit the little Danish town of Solvang, just north of Santa Barbara. It was filled with Danish import shops, restaurants and bakeries. Lots of good stuff!
we just got advent calendars for the bubs. and those pancakes look SO GOOD! can i come over?? *drools*
Christina: I never appreciated cultural differences so much until I married my husband. His brother is still a Danish citizen and it makes life interesting.
Catherine: Thanks for popping by.
Jean: I'm not looking forward to those days, when we have to adjust to our kids new lives.
David: I love the idea of cornbread muffins. Yummmmm.
Adrienne: I always do a neighborhood cookie exchange. Have to work on that for this year.
Kelly: We have ugliest sweater contests - without trying.
Amy: I love the idea of a bonfire on Christmas eve. I may have to try that one - if I can talk the kids into going outside.
GG: My oldest loves Frank - that was his first present on his advent calendar this year - one of Frank's CD's.
Rena: We've been to Solvang - more than a couple times. ;)
Cindy: Next time you're in Portland, Oregon...
Hi Kim, Our tradition is that we bake a birthday cake for Jesus and sing Happy Birthday to Him on Christmas. Our kids actually came up with the idea when they were very little. We emphasized that Christmas celebrated the birth of Jesus and they couldn't imagine a birthday without a cake.
Those round pancakes look fantastic. I think the Germans usually celebrated on Christmas Eve as well. At any rate, that tradition passed down in my mother's family. As a small child I had to be taught that Christmas Day was actually the 25th.
Once my sister and I had families of our own, our parents started celebrating on Christmas Eve...they did this so that we could spend Christmas morning with our new family and so we had the day to spend with our husband's family...when our children were younger, they thought this was great because they had Christmas three times over...grin...
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