I really love all the Danes tradition that surrounds Christmas, and I'm very proud of my roots and where I come from. I try very hard to keep the Danish traditions up, so Lucas can experience it all.
But we really try to combine Danish and American traditions, and it's pretty easy, because in Denmark the whole Christmas celebration is done on Christmas Eve. So that's when we do all the Danish traditions - we eat duck, walk around the Christmas tree and sing Christmas carols and we open presents. On Christmas Day we do all the American traditions, which most of you are very familiar with :-)
We also celebrate Advent. Lucas is not opening a present every single day. It would be fun for him, but not so much fun for my vallet. He's getting a present every Sunday in Advent and Christmas eve morning. So five presents is easier than 24. And we can actually give him something that he can use and not a little junk item. The 1st Sunday he got a little Lego airplane that also can be made into a boat. He was very excited.
I was gonna start decorating for Christmas today. Lucas thought that meant getting the tree. He's so excited about buying the tree. We'll probably do that Friday after work. We didn't really get started, because we had to go to the doctor, because Lucas got pink eye. But I did manage to do one thing.
In Denmark we make Christmas decorations. It's kinda like a flower arrangement with a candle in it. In Denmark you can buy a candle with the numbers 1-24 on it. You burn a number each day - a little countdown to Christmas. However you use clay and then you place whatever greenery etc. you want to put in it. But since Americans don't make them, it's pretty hard to find cute things etc. for them. Here's just a few examples of how they look like.
In the past I've used silk greenery and flowers, but this year I decided to do the real thing. First I had to get some clay. I paid over $7 for it. It's a little hefty since in Denmark it's only like $1, but it's a clay made just for making the decorations. Of course the clay I bought is modeling clay.
I had some greenery in my yard, and we have woods behind us, so today Lucas and I ventured out in our woods. We didn't really find much. I was hoping we could find some acorns etc. We did find some red berries and moss. I also sliced an orange and put it in the oven so it could dry, and I used a couple of slices in my decoration. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I want to make another one too, but that has to wait till the weekend.
Ok, here's my attempt at it.
And Lucas playing with some clay. It's so much fun to have him hang out with me doing my stuff.
