milling mondays: danish christmas recipes

As I mentioned in my last post I can't believe that it is almost Christmas! So exciting:) I just love love Christmas time. I love the cozy times spent with family and friends. Christmas trees and decorations, gift exchanges, Christmas smells, and yummy yummy food and dessert that are served this time of year. This season is often filled with nostalgia for me and with that the desire to make Christmas recipes I grew up enjoying. Here are some of my favorite yummy Danish Christmas treats featured on this blog if you want to try something new and delicious.


Vanillekranse

Brunkager

Danish Rye Bread with Dried Fruit, Seeds and Nuts

Æbleskiver

Ginger Cake (Ingefærkage)

If baking isn't your thing and you enjoy yummy smelling Christmas candles you can head over to Waiting Hearts Candle Co using this link to purchase some.

christmas 2013

I can't believe Christmas was a month ago and I have yet to post any pictures from this trip. We had a lovely Christmas with my family in Florida. I plan to post some more pictures from our time there in the days to come, but here is a sneak peak.

thanksgiving 2013

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Stanwood with Michael's family (minus the Kelley family:( ).
We had a good time connecting, playing and meeting our new niece for the first time (more to come on that later). I will post more pictures from our visit in the days to come.

 

 

 

 

 

happy new year

I can't believe it is already 2012. I am looking forward to seeing what this new year has in store.

We celebrated New Year's Eve with the family in Florida. We just hung out, had a yummy dinner prepared mostly by Team Vang, watched the danish queen's new year's speech etc. Anders did not make it till midnight ... but I guess we will forgive him this year;)

juleaften

Being danish, we celebrate Juleaften (Christmas) on December 24. We had a wonderful day/evening.  This was Michael and Anders' first danish Christmas so they were introduced to many danish traditions.

We had amazing food. After dinner we ate the traditional rice pudding dessert - risalamande - where an almond is hidden. I found the almond in my bowl ... and won the mandelgave (almond gift) ... dark chocolate:)

One of the fun danish traditions is dancing around the Christmas tree while singing danish Christmas songs

lille juleaften (little christmas eve)

As a danish family we have always celebrated the night before Christmas Eve - Little Christmas Eve (Lille Juleaften). In many danish families, this is the day the tree is bought and decorated. In our family we have the tradition of playing a game called 10,000 while eating lots of candy, chocolate, Christmas cookies etc. This was Michael's first lille juleaften experience and he did great. Andreas and Ashley were the winners this year - way to go Team Vang!

christmas in florida

We had an amazing time in Florida with my family over Christmas. We hadn't seen my parents in six months and Michael had not even met little Anders. It was great to reconnect in person and just relax and enjoy each others' company. We have taken so many pictures so I hope to write several posts over the next couple of weeks giving some highlights from this trip (and I will warn you... there will probably be many pictures of Anders:))