God Save the Queen

Today was the company Christmas party at a place called Sonnerupgård, an estate of some sort about an hour west of Copenhagen. The camera battery was kaput so no pictures, which is maybe OK because they would have been very predictable—green fields, bare trees, weak winter sunlight. The party was in a big old ‘granite barn’ with rough stone walls and a high timbered ceiling. I thought it was at least 200 years old but turns out it was built in the 1870s.

It was a very Danish affair, with little spherical pancakes to start and various kinds of Danish hotdogs (pølser) later on. There was a Danish Santa who marched the younger kid around the Christmas tree for what seemed an hour. People who perform for kids over here are invariably miked up and speaking in high screechy voices. I think I prefer our North American Santas, who mostly keep their mouths shut except for a few Ho Ho Ho’s.

We were invited out into the wet woodlands to ‘chop down’ our own Christmas tree. (Funny how everyone says ‘chop down’ when you inevitably use a saw.) Louis and I took turns with the saw. We then got a ride with our tree on a horse-drawn wagon back to the estate. Later we carried the tree on a bus and two trains, before lugging it a quarter mile from the train station to the house. I think I still can feel a few stray needles down the back of my shirt. Anyway, it was nice to go somewhere different and be outdoors in the daylight. Louis collected a 150 DKK giftcard to the local video chain as his present from Santa (about $30). Not too shabby.

We now have two trips on this horizon: a train journey to Berlin just after Christmas, and a week in Florida at the beginning of February. I’m craving sun because we’ve now reached the darkest part of the year here in Scandinavia. I woke up during the night last night and tried to make out the time on my watch. Seven forty-five? What the? I turned on the light and double-checked. Sure enough. It was fully dark at a quarter to eight in the morning. The sun comes up at 8:20 and it’s pretty bright by around nine and stays that way for a while, but then somewhere around two p.m. it starts to get dim; it’s pitch dark by 4:15.

We’ll be back from Berlin on December 29th—I’m glad we’ll be home for New Years, and here’s why. Our Danish tutor occasionally gives us little lessons in Danish culture along with the language. I don’t know if this is strictly his idea or part of the program, but we enjoy it. The other day he described to us, in loving detail, the tradition of the Queen’s New Year’s Eve speech. Queen Margarethe (the Danish word for ‘queen’ is ‘dronning,’ but that’s not any reflection on her oratorical ability) speaks, in unvarying sequence, about the state of the world, the state of the nation, and the state of the royal family. Then she wishes everyone a happy new year and signs off. According to Michael (our tutor) there isn’t any of the sort of savage lurid mocking scrutiny about the royals that we see in the English media. Of course, I can’t read the tabloids yet, so I don’t know if this is entirely true, but it’s sort of encouraging. I also won’t understand much of the queen’s speech, but I’ll raise a toast regardless.

A final word about Christmas in Denmark—there is none of the cultural relativism about this holiday that we know from the U.S. Christmas is Christmas. Even in Louis’ highly multicultural international school, where there are many Muslim students, it’s Christmas time, not holiday time. I’ve been wondering why things are different here. I think it’s mostly because Denmark has always been a Christian country and nobody’s ever had any basis to challenge that. Somehow, this identity frees them to be very unreligious--because everybody is automatically Christian, it’s not part of anybody’s identity. All in all, the Danes are much less self-conscious about who they are than Americans are. But then, Denmark has never presented itself as a new kind of country with no default religion or ethnic identity. If we Americans often seem petty and sanctimonious, it’s partly because we’re aiming high.