On New Years Eve Jens and I just couldn't take any more of that Christmas crap so we took it all down and mashed it into 3 moving boxes. Then I wheeled the 3 boxes down to the basement and moved it to the top shelf where we wont have to look at it again until next December.
Jens and I were anxiously awaiting 2014 with a clean slate. Here are a few pix from our private little celebration.
Bounty knows this evening is all about food so she is patiently awaiting for something good to eat.
Slowly I was getting the food and the table ready. While doing so, our doorbell rang
and it was our neighbor Ulla. She is so sweet. Last year she gave us a
can of delicious home-made christmas cookies and this year she handed
Jens a bouquet of beautiful large pink daisies.
Every New Years Eve, the queen of Denmark gives a live speech at 6 pm to wish a Happy New Year to all her subjects in the kingdom of Denmark as well as in Greenland and The Fareo Island.
At 5 minutes to 6, you can hear a pin drop because everyone is glued to the TV set to hear her New Year speech. Queen Margarette is the only head of state to give a live speech on televisions and without a teleprompter as well.
Another traditions is Kransekage. A most delicious pastry/dessert/cake made of almonds. Hard as a rock and you can put an eye out if you throw a ring of cake at somebody's face. But when you bite into it, it is so surprisingly soft that you want to eat it forever. Kransekage is always severed at midnight with champagne. You can get the kransekage in a few different shapes. Something made of rings is most common. I always like to get the one with a clock in the middle showing just a minute or two to midnight.
Now the table is ready and asperagas soup is the first coures. Jens asked me, "didn't you buy shrimp?" I was in such a rush to get rid of all that christmas crap put away that I totally forgot to take the garlic marinated tiger shrimp out of the freezer.
But before we eat, we listen to the queen. Just before she comes on the tube I mix us a Happy New Year cocktail. The pink flowers from Ulla goes perfectly with the overpriced Italian pink lemonade that I bought from the stupidmarket. In honor of Putin's favorite all girl rock band, I named this cocktail "Pink Pussy Riot". As a slap in the face to all that is crazy in Russia, I used vodka from their neighboring country Finland.
We heard the queen, we down our pink pussy riots, sipped our soup and now onto the main course. I think most Danes eat Tork (Cod) for New Year's but Jens is not a fish kind of guy so we are having ham. My goodness it was so tender that when I went to hold it steady with a 2 pronged fork so that I could slice it, the fork went right through the hunk of meat as if it was warm butter. The ham was served with caramelized baby potatoes. Another triditional dish that most Danes eat every New Year, Grønlangkål; something weird and delicious. Made of finely chopped kale and mixed with cream, butter, sugar and salt. Looks gross but taste pretty close to candy. And we washed all down with a delicious red wine.
After dinner we walk the dog in good time to avoid the biggest of the boom boom. Then we watch a bit of TV - lots of New Year specials are on TV this evening. And then I got dessert going. It looks like chicken thighs but it's baked pear halves with cinnamon, brown sugar and butter served with vanilla ice-cream.
At about 15 minutes to midnight, another tradition is this silly little 11 minute film that the Danes like to watch just before the strike of midnight. A rather odd history to this 1920's British sketch that most Brits are not aware of; played by Brits in Hamborg in 1936 and shown in Germany and Denmark and a few other places but not in Britian. As it turns out there are a few versions of the piece. The one we watch here in DK is where the table is already set and the butler bangs on the gong to call Miss Sophie to the table. This version starts with the butler setting the table and there is no gong.
When they show it in Denmark, it's after the 2 minute German intro and without the canned laugh.
And then it's Hickory Dickory Dock and Boom Boom time. Here is a 60 second and 40 second clip from our balcony of how the Danes ring in the New Year - or should I say explode in the new year? All this explosion slowly builds from about 10 in the evening and peaks at about 12:30/1:00, lasting till at least 2ish - 3ish in the morning.
I shot these from our balcony. I told myself that I was going to go down to the water where I know that the view would have been even better as there are 2 large apartment buildings between us and the water. But I get nervous with all those drunks with all that fire power so we stayed as close to home as possible.
Happy New Year !
