New Second Family and Danish Xmas Traditions

The day after i came back from La Santa, i moved into my 2nd host family. There's the host mother Rina, host father Henrik, and nine year old son Nils. Plus 2 half host siblings (from Henrik's previous marriage) that i never really see because they have moved out of the house and are a lot older.
They have different tradtions but all Danes have certain traditions that they follow. I loved these traditions and had a blast this Xmas! We went to my host mother's sister's summer house and celebrated Xmas with her side of the family! It was wonderful! I even got 3 packages from my family back home and a package from my Grandma!! That was the best! But they celebrate traditions like:
- All kids beleive in "nisse" which are Santa's helpers. They watch the children to see if they are being good. And you can bribe them with a favorite food dish called risengrode. It's boiled rice with cream, butter, and cinnamon.
- All Danes make candle decorations with natural leaves, branches, pine cones, and such things. They light a ton of candles because it is so dark and gloomy this time of year. It get's light around 9:00 am and dark around 2:30 pm. So most of the time i go to school in the dark and get home in the dark.
- All Danes drink glugg (which is hot wine with spices (cinnamon), almonds, and raisins) and eat aebleskever (a kind of muffin which you dip in jelly and powdered sugar).
- Most Danes have Julcalenderer. Which means it's a cute little calendar where you get a small gift everyday until Xmas.
- Danes play games like pakkeleg (where everyone brings a random silly gift and you roll dice to get it. You have to roll a six and you can steal gifts from others or take a gift from the center pile of gifts), ris-a-la-mande (there is a bowl of boiled rice with chopped almonds in it. Then there is one whole almond. Everyone has to eat the ris-a-la-mande until the whole almond is found. In which you can spit it out right away or hold it in your mouth until the WHOLE bowl of ris-a-la-mande is finished, THEN spit it out! =) They hate when they have to eat the whole bowl. =) Hahaha! If you find the almond, you get a gift! I've won this game twice!! And i made everyone eat ALL the ris-a-la-mande! Hahaha!), and all Danes, on Xmas, dance around the Xmas tree. They sing a song for every person in the circle around the tree and have fun dancing! =) This is my favorite tradition!
- Xmas trees have only white lights and REAL LIT candles on the trees. Every tree is real and NOT plastic and the tree is decorated with matching red, gold, and silver ornaments. There are no other colors on the Xmas tree. Plastic tree's are so "american" and when decorated with blue, or green, or yellow, or pink, or purple lights is so fake and "american".
- Most Danes do not put up Xmas lights. ESPECIALLY not in "wild" colors (basically any other color than white).
- Plus, Everyone here celebrates Xmas on the 24th and NOT the 25th. On the 25th there is a Xmas lunsh where everyone eats herrign and drink snobs and drink till they're drunk.
- 26th is hangover day. =P Hahaha!

---

---