Nisse

In most countries christmas is a big deal. It is in Denmark as well and it is pretty much my favorite holiday so I tend to go over board come Christmas time. This year I decided to needlepoint a Christmas calender for her and for each day from December 1st to the 24th she will unwrap a little piece of danish Christmas.  I am almost done - well done with the needlepoint anyway. I have been doing it as a secret from her so I have sewing like crazy when she wasn't home. The kids have been following my progress and as I was getting to the end I realized that they don't have one? So ... and this is where the going over board comes in - I started to needlepoint one for each of the twins - sigh ... only 1½ months to go before I have to be done - no problem!

As I was working on it she asked me what I was doing. I then started to explain a danish Christmas calender - one little present each day is easy enough to understand - the real challenge came when I said; "and on this one I am sewing a Nisse." Oh like a elf? Uhm no, not an elf. A gnome then? Uhm no not really. In the middle of my own explanation about Nisse-lore I had a out-of-the-body experience. I must have sounded like an idiot: A nisse is about yea high, not as a tall as an elf but taller than a gnome. I had no idea how much I know about Nisse and how ridiculous it sounds when someone tries to explain the concept. It is a very Scandinavian thing ... read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomte and he looks like this:


I can't wait to show her all the other strange things that make up a danish Christmas.