Merry Ho Ho Ho

Here is a short, little blog of my Christmas here in Copenhagen.  Not too much of a story but lots of photos and in no particular order. Enjoy!

The first set of photos is a trip to Tivoli with my girlfriend Anne.

 

 Behind us is the town hall.

This tree is decorated with real crystals.

The next set of photos is over several days. 6 different days to be exact. 

I try to go for walks daily and especially the very few days when the sun is out.   

 A beautiful day loaded with sunshine - our apt. in the background.

 

 A café just down the street.  I snapped this pix for my sister, Jeanette, the bike enthusiast.

 

 In real life the hearts are bright red but it never shows up that way in my digital film.

 

 I'm not the best at selfies and I was not having the best day today.

I was surprised when I saw these because I actually thought I was smiling.

That's how rough the day was.

 

 

 So here I forced a smile on my face.  This is in the train station which I love to visit during Christmas time.

The next set of pix is from our garden and very near by.

I'm on the bord of members of our apartment garden so I help with setting up the tree in our yard.

 

 

 

 

I did a quick and dirty job this year with the lights on our balcony but at least I got a few things up. Can't believe our pumpkin is still doing well.

About 2 weeks ago I drew a Christmas tree on it.

Then on a walk just down the street I came across this beautiful Santa-red bicycle with a few matching berries of the tree that it was parked underneath.  It appeared to be vey xmassy for me.

We, Jens and I, also hit up a church Christmas concert.  

Our good friends Dan and Jørn are in the choir with a very funny name: Carmen Curlers.  

They sang at the very pretty church called Frihavns Kirke.

pix is from the net.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

On another occasion, our good friends John and Birthe were so sweet to invite me to join them for the Santa Lucia Christmas parade which takes place in kayaks.  

It's a Swedish tradition - in a church - but the Danes turned it into a spectacle for the whole city.  Everyone turned out to see the very pretty light show.  We actually should have been there at least 1 whole hour before it started.  I snapped one photo and it came out blurry so here is a pix from the net along with my blur.

The story behind Santa Lucia is really interesting.  You should take a quick look at it here.

Throughout the holidays there is an over abundance of tasty treats.  Here are just a few of the millions of calories that Jens and I enjoyed.

The next set of pix

Luckily this day, the sun was out again so I rushed outdoors to get some sun in my eyes and on my face.  You need sunlight in your eyes to get a good nights rest.  And for sure I need it, as dark skinned people need more sunlight than fair skinned people.  So I took an extra long walk today thinking I could find my friend Nasko selling his wonderful artwork on the square.  But instead of artist selling their wares today, the Christmas market, which I totally forgot about, was now taking place here at Nyhavn.  (Nyhavn pix are further below)

 The start of my walk: Looking back along the pedestrian/bike bridge you can see our apt. just to the right of the double twin tower building.

 This wooden dock area is huge and extremely popular with young people in the summer time.

It's called the wave.  In the background you can see Langebro (Long Bridge).

 Looking towards the center of town up one of the canals.

 I never get tired of viewing the beautiful old buildings.

 The brown tower is new copper which in time will turn green to match all the other old towers and roofs in town.  It is the tower to the Parliament building.

 

 The big tall building in the background, putting out clean steam, is a power plant that burns trash and sends out warm water to the city.  On top of the building it is covered with a special kind of plastic that you can ski on.  It's a ski hill on top of the building. Click this link to see pix of the powerplant and ski slope.  It is designed by Bjærke Ingles. Click this link to see his New York projects.  He is the guy who designed the new trade tower in NYC 

 The sign above is the sign under the Christmas tree below.

 

 

 

 German sausage - delish !

 

This guy is creating a work of art on his sausage.

 

 

 

This woman is making a pile of pancakes/crêpes.  

One thin layer at a time.

 

 

Then as I return home from my walk, I snap yet another photo from the pedestrian/bicycle bridge.

This is the view looking north towards the city center. 

On another day, I have finally had success getting Jens out of the apt. to go have lunch across the street at the mall.

 Not a good selfie so I got the waitress to do the next few.

 

 

 

I have been trying to get Jens to go to the mall so that I could take a really nice and cute Christmas photo to attach to my Christmas cards.  The selfie didn't come out so well so I asked a woman to do me a favor. 

She took 4 photos and they all came out blurry.  I didn't notice until after we got home.

oh brother. 

 

Then another evening at home watching the news, they showed the Christmas market at Bakken.  Bakken is the worlds oldest amusement park in the world.  They were showing how cheap the nutcrackers were and Jens wanted to go and get a few.  I was so happy that he wanted to get out of the house.  But the next day, he just didn't have the energy to do it.  So instead I took a walk and went back up to Nyhavn.  Not for anything in particular but just to go for another mind refreshing walk.  It turned out that one of the Christmas booths had a some nutcrackers on sale as it was the 2nd to the last day for the market.  So as a surprise for Jens, I bought 2.  

Here are some photos from that walk and then at the end of this photo set you can see the nutcrackers on our shelf.

 This is such a wonderful outdoor bar/café on a floating dock on one of the canals and just a ½ hours walk from our apt.  The little black house all the way to the left of the photo is normally outdoor seating but I guess they made this covering for the winter.  And this month you could easily sail up to the dock, buy your tree and sail back home with it.

 

 Then as I continued up the canal, I heard some Christmas music but could not figure out where it was coming from.  Then I saw this:

 

 

 Now I am approaching Nyhavn via the "Kissing Bridge".  There is a cute Christmas market here at Nyhavn too.  It's the place to eat in the summer time.  All the tourist and All the Danes end up here at least once during the sommer.

 

 Restaurants on the right and Christmas booths lined up along the canal on the left.

This is The Mermaid restaurant. 

At the end of Nyhavn is The Kings New Square and across the street from that is the fanciest hotel in all of Denmark.  The entrance is flanked by 2 nutcrackers.  (no, these are not the 2 that I bought for Jens. ha ha) 

 

 Some street decoration.

  Above is a side street to the fancy hotel.

Below is a different side street view towards the town hall tower.

 Now I am retuning home and I take a short cut through the mall.  Just to the right of the girl coming up the escalator is where Jens and I ate lunch the other day (see the above lunch photos).

 Here I have a little Christmas display. And a fake smile.  I didn't have the energy to go all out this year.  But thanks to Birthe (the one who invited me to the Santa Lucia kayak parade) and thanks Lotte (our very nice and kind neighbor downstairs on the ground floor)  between the 2 of them, I ended up with plenty of sticks and greenery to make this nice display.  I also mentioned earlier in this story about Nasko and his art work.  You can see in the white photo frame one of his very nice creations which is to represent the old buildings of Denmark.

 Below is a photo of the 2 nutcrackers that I bought for Jens.  

12" / 30cm high and only $15/100dk each.

Made of real wood.

Then finally it was the big Christmas event.  Dan and Stephan invited us to Christmas Eve dinner at their place along with another good friend of ours Jørn.

We had a wonderful calm and easy and very cozy Christmas visit.  

Dan is from New Joysie and his husband Stephan is from Berlin.  

Dan loves to decorate and he really goes all out every year.

It's almost like walking into a fairytale Christmas village.

Dan made salmon and I made the traditional side of pork.

We over ate, played "steal the package" and in general, had a wonderful Christmas Eve celebration.

Thanks Dan and Stephen for making it so wonderful.

 These were too delicious - bubbling wine, cranberry juice and a squeeze of lime.

Stephan and Oxy 

Jens and Jørn 

 Dan in the foreground.

 Dan and Stephan decorate the tree that I brought them.

Left to right: Jens, Jørn, Dan, Stephan, Eddie 

 The guy I love sooooooooooooo much.

 The pork roast I made.

Orange salmon. 

 Pumpkin pie.

 I won the almond prize.  Danish tradition:  you stick a whole almond in the rice pudding and whoever gets the almond, wins the marzipan pig as the prize.  I was stuffed and I couldn't finish my dessert.  Everybody else was done and nobody had the almond.  I looked into what I couldn't eat and I didn't have the almond either.  But then Jørn started to play around in my bowl and he found the almond.  Too funny.

And there you have it.  This was our little celebration.  It was a tough year and a hard ending.  But thanks to good friends, good work colleagues, good neighbors, and family who helped us get though it all, we are able to say that it ended up as well as it could be considering all the low spots.  But we have to continue to look to him to get us over the rough spots and continue to realize the importance of good friends and family with kind and loving hearts.

I sure hope your holidays went smoothly - or as smooth as could be and that 2020 will bring us all good fortune.

Happy New Year.