If you ignore the guys peeing in dumpsters...

Copenhagen is really beautiful at Christmas! Sure it gets dark at 3 pm, but that just means more time to enjoy the light displays on Strøget, the pedestrian shopping street. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me today when I went shopping for shoes to go with my new Julefrokost (Christmas lunch, literally, but not really a lunch so much as a herring buffet and boozefest) dress, but below you can see a picture taken by somebody else of some other year's Christmas decor. (I don't know what time of day that picture could have been taken though -- I've never seen that square so un-crowded in December!) I think the nicer end of Strøget is one of the prettiest places in Copenhagen at Christmas -- Tivoli's pretty good too, but a bit much, perhaps, and much more touristy.Denmark gets into the Christmas spirit starting on November 1st, aka J-Day, when Tuborg's Julebryg (Christmas brew) is released. This marks the beginning of the season, and all the shops put up their Christmas displays. I haven't been feeling Christmas-y for quite so long, but the last few weeks have been pretty full of Julehygge -- what with the decorations, the gløgg and pebernødder cookies, the Crazy Christmas Cabaret in Tivoli, and Nøddeknækkeren (the Nutcracker) last Friday, although the Danes put on one of the weirdest productions of it I've ever seen, with the exception of the Ballet of the Dolls version -- the Danish one included two Herr Drosselmeyers, a giant yellow rabbit on springs, a gorilla sugarplum fairy, and WAY more bicycles than I've ever seen in the Nutcracker before. We had terrible seats in the gallery, with a rather limited view of the stage but a very nice view of the royal box. Unfortunately Her Majesty was not in attendance.

13 days, according to my advent candle!