An Interesting Christmas “Lunch”
I moved to Denmark a couple of years ago and the biggest culture shock for me was julefrokost.
Julefrokost translates to “Christmas lunch” which sounds like a nice, wholesome lunch to celebrate the holidays. The first time I went to one, my husband warned me not to eat anything beforehand because there is a lot of food. I didn’t think much of it, I mean we have Thanksgiving in the U.S. so I just assumed it was a big lunch. No.
No. We have nothing like this in the U.S. Julefrokost is on an entirely different level.
You see, it’s a lunch only in name. What it really is, is sitting down at about noon, and not getting up from your seat again until midnight or later. The food never stops coming. The schnapps never stop coming. It’s course after course after course and the Danes can drink you under the table any day, so combine that with strong liquor over a 12 hour stretch and you are likely to die.
My first julefrokost, I sat across from my husband’s uncle, who kept my shot glass full the entire day. I was drunk by 2pm and full to the point of bursting at 3pm. I have never been so sick as I was the day after my first julefrokost.