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New Year
Unlike Christmas, which most people spend with their family, New Year is celebrated with the friends. New Year’s Eve is framed by two important items broadcast on television and radio, viz. respectively the monarch’s New Year Speech at 6pm and the striking of midnight by the Town Hall Clock in Copenhagen, which marks the start of the new year.
The monarch’s New Year Speech has virtually become a national rallying point since it was first made in 1942 during the German Occupation, when the King called for national unity.
Many Danes party with various kinds of good food followed by champagne and marzipan ring cake at midnight. The New Year is greeted with fireworks after midnight; they include both noisy bangs and rockets, etc which light up the night sky in many different colours. In many parts of the country, the traditional New Year’s Eve menu is boiled cod, the so-called New Year’s cod, or stewed kale and cured saddle of pork. It is characteristic of both dishes that they are less fattening than the calorie-rich Christmas dishes.
The high jinks traditionally associated with a transition, such as the start of a new year, have almost disappeared along with the close relationship with the neighbours. The last trace of the dressing up associated with some of the high jinks is found in the paper hats which together with streamers and balloons constitute the traditional New Year’s decorations.
6 JANUARY - EPIPHANY
Epiphany was abolished as an official church festival in 1770. When the candles thus go out, it symbolises the end of Christmas.
