SCRAPBOOKING BREAKUP FOR 2021...

 Another year come and gone and we have our 9am to 9pm scrapbooking day again.  I missed this last year and there is a good chance that I will miss it next year too as all being well we should be overseas.

This year we had a theme for our day of "Christmas around the World" and we were given a chance to share some Christmas traditions from other countries around the world.  Both Terri and I have family in Denmark so ours were always going to be Danish Traditions..

Terri

 

Terri's friend Esther joined us this year...

Heather shared with us some of her English Christmas Traditions

Janet

Three Generations of Rayners.  Ann, her daughter Kate and her grand daughter Emma

Our Christmas photo for 2021

I get to be in this photo

Jannett and I

Lesley Barnes

Emma

 Terri really went to a lot of trouble to share the Danish Christmas Tradition with us.  She had a Danish friend make us some traditional Honey Heart Biscuits and also made up little packs of a Danish woven heart to make..

Danish Woven Heart and Honey Heart Cookie...

 Honey Hearts or Honninghjerter as they are called in Denmark are something the Danes only eat at Christmas time.  They are rarely made at home these days as you have to do quite a bit of pre planning.  It is a shame because the homemade ones are superior to most store-bought honninghjerter.

Bakeries usually sell a lot of  Honey Hearts (Honninghjerter) decorated with a gloss image of Santa Clause on top. When families gather, the children will collect these gloss images and play with them.

Another place you can always find the Honey Hearts (Honninghjerter) is at Christmas markets. They are easy to nibble on while you wander the stalls and look at all the Christmas goods.

Like with most Danish Christmas cookies and treats, Danes have honninghjerter with a hot beverage like coffee, tea or glögg.

There is quite a history to the Honey Heart..

Honey cakes first came to Denmark through Germany. Monks in Nürnberg baked lebkuchen in the 13th century and by the 17th century, it had become a regular industry.

Honninghjerter as such stems from Southern Jutland in Denmark and are closely linked with the brethren congregation.

We can identify not only the town Danish honninghjerter originated in, Christiansfeldt, a free town for the brethren congregation, but also the address, Lindegade 21, where they were first made in 1783.

Here, a baker named Christian Rasch had opened a bakery. But the business was going poorly, as Rasch couldn’t get his hands on enough honey.

It wasn’t until a German brethren wig-maker from Neudietendorf, named Immanuel Martin Achtnicht, moved to Christiansfeldt that the business took off.

Achtnicht realised that wigs were going out of fashion and began to bake honey cakes instead. He took over Rasch’s bakery, moved it to Lindegade 27 and then in 1797 to Lindegade 36, where it is still located and fully operational today.

The honninghjerter spread quickly to the rest of the country from Christiansfeld, which for a long time held a monopoly on the recipe.

 

Terri presented us all with a biscuit and this craft pack to make a woven heart.

 

 I took along some Danish Christmas decorations...

Christmas in Denmark isn’t about Santa or the elves. It’s about the pixies.

Pixies live in each Danish home, according to fairy tales, and families decorate their walls and windows with Santa’s little helpers during the month of December.

Other Danish decoration are relatively subdued. Lots of candles, lots of pine-inspired decor. Colors tend to be white, red, gold, silver and green. There aren’t a lot of outdoor lights on personal homes or apartments, but the main streets of the city do get dressed up.

As is the way with most Scandinavian decor, go for the minimalist, the nature-inspired, and keep the color palate simple. Typical Danish decorations that both kids and adults can make are Julehjerter (Christmas Hearts) and Julestjerner (Christmas Stars) and other julepynter (Christmas ornaments). They’re made from folded paper and can be hung up with string.

I was able to bring along my Danish Advent Candle.  This is a Danish holiday tradition that is fun for the entire family! You get to countdown to Christmas Day by burning an unscented pillar candle once each day in December until you wake up on Christmas morning.   I have bought a few home from Denmark which we use each year so that we have a little bit of Denmark in our Christmases.

Danish Christmas Advent Candle without the pixies

The girls were very busy scrapbooking pages and making cards...

I had planned to do some Holiday photo books, but at the last minute ended up putting together a display of all the places that the Circle of Friends ladies have visited over the past 8 years for my friend Margaret who had to head to Melbourne suddenly as her precious grand daughter hadn't been given long to live...

Dianne was busy making Christmas cards

Donna has done some great pages...

Dianne makes the most beautiful cards...

Donna

Heather and Janet were on a mission and were producing some great pages.  Sometimes I really miss scrapbooking.  I love working with paper and scissors but really have no where to store the incredible amounts of product to indulge in this hobby.  As it is, I have so much stuff that I really really need to get rid of...

Dressed for Christmas

It was a lovely day.  We charged $35 each for the day, this paid for a Subway lunch and ice block, and then a Thai Dinner at night with still somewhere around $15-$18 per person going to our selected charity this year which was supporting Chaplins in our schools.

I must admit though, I was pretty wacked by the time I got home around 10pm that night..