Christmas in Denmark: First Impressions

Back home in America, the Christmas season starts earlier and earlier each year.  As early as September, stores are putting out Christmas decorations or stocking the shelves with holiday-related kitsch.

And every year, radio stations have an unofficial race to see who can switch to 24-hour Christmas music first.  Once they do, all of the other stations who'd planned to do so rush to change their format until after the New Year.

And don't get me started on the ridiculousness of Black Friday.

As I'm sure a lot of Americans will agree, the holidays can be an extremely stressful time.  Have to get the best gifts for the best price, have to find something unique, have to impress the family and the friends and bake (or buy, in my case) more cookies and pies than necessary.

Call me a Scrooge if you will, but it's been a while since I was actually a fan of Christmas.

In Denmark, though, it seems to me a much nicer thing.  A few tasteful decorations go up here and there in November, but most wait until December 1.  And the decorations that do go up are so much less garish.  It just strikes me as a much more subdued, tasteful thing, and less of a competition to see who has the most "cheer."

As far as Christmas traditions in Denmark, I don't really know much about them yet.  I can tell you that Danes generally do their celebrating on Christmas Eve, as opposed to Christmas Day.

And then there is the company Julefrokost.

I have yet to experience one myself, but these are Christmas parties hosted by companies all over Denmark.  Technically, "Julefrokost" means "Christmas lunch," but it's generally more of an afternoon-into-evening-into-early-morning kind of thing.

And they're notorious.

It's traditional for employees and their bosses to eat and drink more than is good for them, and to act out.  Rumors abound about how the divorce rate jumps up right after Christmas because of all of the Julefrokost indiscretions, and how bosses and employees are known to regularly hook up at these parties and then never speak of it again.

I'm sure that's the case at some of them.  In general, though, it sounds a bit like a "big fish" story to me. People love to appear to have a wilder life than they actually have.

This Danish Christmas season started with a little bit of snow here in Copenhagen, so I thought I'd share the latest picture of our puppy, Wooster.  Here he is, enjoying his first snow day:

Bi-Weekly Career Induced Hives

Here's the situation:

I've spent the last 6 years of my working in radio.  It's an industry that I've known for a while I would eventually need to get out of, because the industry is pretty quickly shrinking.

Well, this impending move to Copenhagen has put a pretty clear end-date on my radio career, since I don't currently speak Danish and there are no English language radio stations there.

So, you're probably wondering, whatever will she do for a living in Denmark?

And the attempt to answer that question has lead to a phenomenon that is relatively new in my life: the bi-weekly career crisis panic attack!  *cue fanfare*

I had this basic plan to go back to school when we got there, since I'd be a legal resident.  My understanding was that legal residents are able to go to universities in Denmark tuition-free.  Today I was informed that I'll likely have to be a legal resident for 2 years before I'm eligible to go to school without paying.  The last thing I need is more school loans to pay off, so this information has put that plan on hold.

I've been working pretty regularly since I was 16, and haven't been unemployed for more than a month here and there since I was 20.  Not to mention I've been living on my own (not counting a few failed attempts at cohabitation) for about as long as well.

Basically, the idea of living there and not being able to financially contribute to the household is kinda giving me hives.