Nisser.

I love Danish Nisser.

Nisser are Danish Christmas Elves or Pixies. They live in your attic and wear red floppy hats (kind of like Santa hats, minus the white fluff.) They love rice pudding, so, throughout December you have to leave some out for them. If you do, they put presents in your stocking! If you don't... they tease you. They love rice pudding. There are two kinds of rice pudding, the kind you eat for dinner, which just has cinnamon, sugar and butter on. There's another kind for dessert. It has extra cream in it and you put cherry syrup on top and theres an almond in it somewhere. Whoever finds the almond gets a present!

A couple weeks ago, we had rice pudding for dinner. We had some left over, so Amanda put 10 spoons in the bowl as Pia went and got the ladder. We put the rice pudding up in the attic (which took some doing.) A couple of days later, the Nisser left Amanda a present in her stocking!

I love the Nisser and I think I will adopt some to bring home with me. I've bought a couple of them, because they're cute. They look like little old men with long beards and knitted red hats.

Other Danish Christmas traditions? Advent calendars! They're big here. Amanda has six. two give her chocolate. One gives her real gifts (stocking-stuffer kinds of gifts) that Pia has bought for her. And then we all have our advent calendar scratch ticket! I need 3 more reindeer to win 5,000-kr. There's a candle too- it has numbers down the side of it and each day you burn the candle down to the next day, counting down to Christmas! I'm tempted to buy a bunch to distribute for next Christmas.