WOW! I cannot fathom that we have already passed all four Sundays in Advent. December has flown by and there has not been a single snowstorm yet.
Every year we talk about the possibility of seeing a white Christmas, and every year we get disappointed. While we might not agree, the climate has changed over time and it seems like winter is no longer around Christmas. Sure, the weather gets a lot cooler, but we rarely see a prolonged snowstorm around Christmas. As such, Elvis will be singing about a white Christmas that does not exist.
Nevertheless, we love Christmas and look forward to this time the entire year. It is the only season that we decorate the house for; inside and outside.
It’s starting to smell like Christmas
My wife hosts several Christmas baking activities for our kids and their friends, although it has been restricted to just our kids during the COVID pandemic.
The house smells of wonderful cookies, mulled wine, pine from our Christmas tree, and every room is nicely decorated with all sorts of decorations. Christmas music is blasting from our Sonos speakers, filling the house with joyous tunes.
Christmas brings joy, smiles, food, slight overeating, and Christmas present shopping to our little house on the mountain.
A Danish Christmas
Traditions are important and will only survive if we keep honoring them. Throughout my childhood, Christmas traditions strongly influenced me. Memories of family Christmases keep flooding my brain when we get closer to actual Christmas, and I make every effort to recreate my childhood Christmas for my kids.
Please note, the Danes, like many European countries, celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December. Families gather late afternoon, sit down for a nice dinner, sing Christmas carols, and then open gifts. Santa visits that evening, not the morning on the 25th.
Despite the current spend-spend-spend culture, we try to make Christmas more about family and food, and less about expensive Christmas presents. Instead, we buy a lot of small presents to give the kids a more enjoyable evening, and they do thoroughly enjoy all the small presents.
A typical Danish Christmas dinner consists of:
- Roasted duck
- Grilled pork sausage
- Pork roast with crackling skin
- White boiled potatoes
- Baby potatoes glazed in sugar
- Red cabbage relish and pickles
- Risalamande with cherry sauce (dessert)
Risalamande is a ‘famous’ Danish Christmas desert and has been around since the early 1900s. The rich people ‘invented’ Risalamande instad of regular rice pudding, making it a delicious desert.
It is a tradition that someone hides a whole almond inside the Risalamande, and whoever finds it gets a small surprise present.
Since I do most of the cooking, I start the food prep on the 23rd of December. It means that I will often work from home on the 23rd to tend to the ducks as they slow-roast for 4-6 hours, depending on the size.
The more I can prepare ahead of the actual Christmas the better. Less stress on the day of Christmas, more time for drinking and watching my favorite Christmas movie “Die Hard”.
Planning ahead pays off 🙂
A short week
The kids are wrapping up the school year on the 23rd of December. Only one lunch was saved.
I’m only prepping meals for four days this week. I’ll be cooking the Christmas dinner on 23rd and 24th, making it fresher for the actual feast.
My daughter is very happy with all the effort I put into the school lunches. Kids in her class are starting to ask if she wants to swap. Many kids only get a boring PBJ sandwich, some crisp, or have to suffer through the premade school lunch.
Fire up the Traeger. Ready your Dutch oven. Go shopping, and let’s start cooking—another Sunday in the Kitchen with music on the magical Demerbox and wonderful aromas filling the room.
| Weekday | Snacks n’ Breakfasts | Lunch | Dinner |
| Monday | Granola bars | Pesto mozzarella with sundried tomatoes on a toasted ciabatta | Beef Wellington with homemade roasted walnut & parsley pesto, with roasted potatoes |
| Tuesday | Chocolate pudding cups | Pasta with creamy chicken, mushrooms, and peppers | Pasta with Italian inspired meat sauce |
| Wednesday | Fruit cups | Pigs in a blanket with homemade cheese dip | Shrimp green curry with boiled white rice |
| Thursday | Chocolate pudding cups | Boiled egg and sundried tomato salad on a toasted ciabatta | Lille Jule Aften Shrimp green curry with boiled white rice |
| Friday | Chip bags | Loaded rye sub with curried egg salad | Jule Aften – roasted duck – browned potatoes – homemade gravy – red cabbage relish – pork roast with crackling skin – risalamande aka rice pudding but nicer |
One day, I might get so organized that I will link the meals below to my recipes. We can only live in hope!
Have a fantastic week, my friends. I hope you enjoy these meal plans. It is so much easier to make food in advance, although you need to invest several hours during the weekend to prepare the meals.
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