Todays Christmas mood maker is a picture from Silkeborg in Denmark some years ago, and the story of the danish Jule frokost.
The 2nd Sunday of advent means that in Denmark the 3rd big Jule frokost weekend is over and a lot of people wakes up with incredible hangovers. Some might even wake up in a strange bed and others without work. I guess this need some explanation. jule frokost means something like Christmas lunch, and it is a tradition that you will get together with people you know to celebrate Christmas and that the year is running out. In the latest decades it has developed in a such way, that you have to have a Jule frokost with all people you have some kind of relation to. This means that the average danish person has to take part in several Jule frokosts in November and December, maybe even into January. Normally you go to one or more Jule frokosts every weekend from mid November till Christmas, and then you go to some with your family. Well that sounds very social and nice, and indeed it is. There is only one problem, the danish Akvavit and the beer.I will try to explain the menu from a typical Danish Jule frokost and the tradition, why you have to have one.
Normally it begins around 5 - 6pm and as a starter you will have brown whole grain bread with different kinds of marinated herring with curry cream, eggs and onions. To make it go down easier, you will have beer and two or more ice cold glasses of akvavit. Then it is time for the warm dishes. Here there is a various numbers of possibilities: Fried plaice with lemon and remulade, warm meatballs with red cabbage, Sylte with Julekål (see a previous post) Grønlangkål with hamburgerryg og medisterpølse, warm liver pate with mushroms, crispy bacon and beet root and even roast pork. To get through this is has to be thinned with several akvavit and beers. At this time the atmosphere is casual and the conversation has loosened up so much that you finally feel honest enough to tell your boss that he is a great guy, despite all the mistakes he makes and his total lack of leadership, that the new young girl at the reception need to have a lesson running the photocopy machine. More akvavit and then the dessert: Risalamande with warm cherry sauce and Port wine or sherry. And then there is time for the music and the dancing, if somebody is still able.
It has been said that this ritual with the Julefrokost is like a pressure valve. After one year of stress and pressure at work, it is good to have one night where everybody act like crazy to let out some pressure. OK, there is lots of examples of people being sacked after the akvavit made them too honest, even parties ending in a big fight. But normally it all settles again. After the hong over is gone, the moral hang over sets in, and mostly people have a quite talk next time they meet, and everybody is happy that there is a whole year to the next time the akvavit tells you the truth.
Here we have had no Jule frokost, and I do not think there is any other country than Denmark where it is coming to this.
Instead we had a nice lunch with our friends the Stearns at an open air Thai restaurant and the temperature was about 20 degrees, so no real Christmas mood here either. 
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