Our house feels empty. We sit and reminisce about our holiday, and come to the conclusion that our best gifts were not bought in a store, wrapped and tied in ribbons.

There are not many times in ones life, when we can live and feel the joy of life through the eyes of another. Our son and his lovely Danish girlfriend gave us this gift. When they looked at each other their love shone in their eyes. My greatest wish for my son has always been that he will have a life well lived and a person he loves to share it with.
We learned about Danish Christmas celebrations and made Julehjerter. We talked about customs shared by Danes and Icelanders, such as the rice pudding that has one whole almond in it and whoever finds the almond gets an extra present. We shared the way our family has blended the Icelandic and American customs and made our own unique way of celebrating Christmas.
Christmas Eve is Icelandic. The men in our family smoke a once a year cigar. The fragrance of the cigars mingled with the smell of the smoked lamb is what Mother and I remember from our homeland. The music is Icelandic. At the stroke of six we listen to a recording of the church bells of the of Reykjavik and a choir singing our favorite hymn. All the foods are from Iceland......smoked lamb with potatoes and peas in a white sauce and pickled red cabbage, followed by the rice pudding mentioned above. After dinner we open our presents as we listen to more Icelandic Christmas music.

Christmas morning we do a version of the American customs, beginning with opening the stocking presents. Over the years we have had many silly and fun toys in the stockings. After our son grew into a young man we started re-wrapping some of these and year after year they re-appear. We love playing with these toys because many of them are wind up toys. In the last two years that our son has lived in Denmark, we have had a turkey dinner with all the fixings. Turkey is not my favorite meat, however, last year we bought our turkey at Whole Foods, and I declared after last year's Christmas Day dinner, “This is the best turkey I have ever eaten. It tasted just like chicken.” I need not tell you how much teasing I have taken from my family for this declaration.
Another highlight of our Christmas this year was a present from my Husband.....tickets to see Die Fledermaus at the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center in New York City. We all enjoyed the whole experience of dressing up, driving to New York City, and enjoying the very funny Operetta. The sets, singing and acting were superb.