Winter in Denmark

Winter has finally arrived in Denmark. The last few months we have had very mild weather, mostly in the low 50’s with a little rain. But starting on the 1^st of December, we dropped down to the upper 30’s during the day, and below freezing during the night. We even had a few flakes of snow last Wednesday. I have now taken out my winter coat, which has been out of use since I was in Russia, and have even started looking for a warmer hat.

Our First Frost

The first day of December also marks the start of another season here in Denmark, the start of Christmas Season. Christmas is the most important public holiday in Denmark, and is the time when many people’s favorite traditions are played out. Nevertheless, as most Danes are not religious, it is not really a Christian holiday. In fact, the name of this holiday doesn’t mention Christ at all; the Danish word Jul (Yule) comes from a pre-Christian Pagan holiday celebrated around the time of the Winter Solstice (21^st of December) by all Germanic peoples of Europe, including the Scandinavians, Germans, and Anglo-Saxons. Nevertheless, this old holiday was blended with Christmas, and the traditions mixed together to create a modern Danish Christmas.

In the home, Danes have some very special decorations for the Christmas season. We have an Adventskrans, or Advent-Wreath, made of pine-boughs we collected from the forest, with four candles. One of these candles is lit every Sunday leading up to Christmas. We also have an advent candle, with numbers counting down the days of December, which we burn every morning. As December is the darkest month of the year in Denmark (the sun will set at 3:40pm this afternoon), it makes sense that the traditional decorations involve candles.

Our Advent Wreath

The city also comes to life during this time. There are lights and garland on many of the streets, and the stores have all decorated their windows for the season. This year, we have some extra decorations in honor of the COP15 Environmental conference that will be held here in a few weeks. All of the Christmas lights in the city are LED, which use less energy that normal lights. Additionally, the large Christmas tree in the Town Square is powered partially by bicycle-generated electricity.

Copenhagen's Christmas Tree

Bicycle Power Generators

Lego Santa

The shop windows are decorated

Christmas Trees on sale on Kultorvet

Christmas Garland

Christmas Lights

Preparations for the Climate Conference

Welcome to Hopenhagen

I am not sure what this is for yet, but it is huge...

I will soon be posting more about both the conference and the Christmas season as time progresses, as well as all of the posts from my trip to Spain, which I have neglected to upload so far. I hope you enjoy!