Christmas in Tivoli

Thursday evening we were able to go to the pre-opening of Tivoli! (They are closed for most of the winter but do open for almost two months around Christmas.) Anyhow, a guy at our church works at the Hard Rock Cafe next door to Tivoli and gave us the tickets for free, so we were able to go with our friends Danny, Claire, and Carter from church.





I have never been to Tivoli at any time of the year, but it was apparent that the whole place had been totally transformed into a winter wonderland with lights and decorations everywhere. They also have dozens of little shops full of ornaments, Christmas decorations, and typical Danish Christmas foods like sausage and glögg (a brew I call the European sangria). Several restaurants in the park were serving typical Danish Christmas dinner, which we all enjoyed! Since we weren't able to bring any of our Christmas decorations with us, we did buy several decorations including some nisser (little Norwegian elves that they are obsessed with!) and an ornament for Ruby's first Christmas. Another Christmas tradition here is to burn what I would call an advent candle. The candle is numbered 1-25 on the side and you burn just a little bit each day until Christmas. We also got one of these because I will be going to a party in a few weeks to decorate a special candle holder for it.

One of the highlights this year was Ruby's first photo with Santa. Santa isn't allowed to hold the children here, so Jared hopped into the shot too. It isn't exactly the best pic since it was pretty cold out and we had Ruby all bundled up with a plug in her mouth to quell the fussing, but it captures the experience! Here's one last picture from the evening--Danny and Carter with Jared and Ruby. We couldn't pass up a picture of babies wearing antlers!