#jul i hullet

[someone-you-do-not-know]

I will ask about Christmas in the hole and Christmas and green forests

Thank you, Stars. You understand my need to be insane about things.

This is the strange story of the worst Christmas calendar ever aired on Danish TV – maybe on any TV ever. And everything around it. Gonna put it under a read more, because uh. The lore is extensive.

Jul og grønne skove or Jul i hullet (Christmas and green forests, nickname: Christmas in the hole) – a ramble:

Okay, we're going back in time, to the year of 1980. Back then, Christmas calendars wasn't as much of a serious thing, as it was just something for kids to watch for half an hour, maybe with their parents. Now, in 1979, Jul i Gammelby aired, which is hailed as one of the best of its time. My parents have talked about how that one is just really cozy and full of Christmas, which is what one would want from a Christmas calendar, of course.

So, 1980. The original plans for the yearly Christmas calendar had gone down the drain, and DR (Denmarks public radio and tv service, the only TV station at the time) had bought the rights to a moomin puppet show from Sweden instead. This show was called Mumindalen (Moomin Valley), which was also a Christmas calendar (SVT 1973). But each episode was only some 14-ish minutes long, and the time slot was for 24-ish minutes, so they had to fill in the time with something.

What does one do? You go to the hosts for the youth department, and ask them to come up with something. There was no time or money to do anything as extravagant as the show airing last year. They had 24 days to write a script, they filmed each episode on the day it aired. There was two men, a remote controlled camera, and a time slot to fill every day for 24 days. The situation was desperate.

The men were Poul Nesgaard and Elith "Nulle" Nykjær Jørgensen. The concept they had come up with? It's a peculiar one. To prove the existence of Santa Claus, they go out on a quest, but fall into a hole in a forest on the 1st of December. While down there, they would answer fan mail and letters (mind you, they were big hotshots to the Danish youth). They would stay in that hole all Christmas, and the only Santa Claus in the show was at the very end. Passing by in the background.

To say the Danish TV audience were disappointed is a big understatement. Most people turned off their TV before the Moomin show had even been shown. Angry letters were sent to newspapers and to DR, everyone hated it. On the 12th of December, the top brass at DR demanded it to stop.

Poul and Nulle kept going. To keep up the appearance that they were stuck in a hole, they didn't do any interviews, having the editor Mogens Vemmer defend the decision instead. Poor guy promised next year would have more Christmas, and demanded Poul and Nulle make it more Christmas. They promised they would do it, but didn't go through with it.

The fan mail went to them, though, and some were positive. On the 21st of December, the show reached a new high or low, depending on how you look at it. A cave man covers the camera a few minutes into the episode, and the rest of it is a "Technical difficulties, please stand by" screen, interrupted with the Moomin show. People thought it was unplanned and sloppy, a storm of phone calls went to DR to complain. On the 24th of December, it was over, and the criticism finally got to Poul. At least it was over. Except it wasn't.

There was a meeting in January, to hold people responsible, but a single letter from a principal singing its praise made the top brass doubt themselves. Maybe they hadn't understood the show? Maybe there was some merit to it? Poul has decided to remember it as a success. The next year, the Christmas calendar was full of Christmas, and with a small reference to the horrible, yet iconic calendar of 1980, where the two men finally got out of the hole.

I've watched some of it. All of the first episode, and some snippets of later episodes. It's... It's odd. It's definitely not the most Christmas-y show. But I say, it would've done numbers on Youtube in the 2010s. They were 30 years too early. The zany humour and home video vibe would've been perfect. Poul and Nulle were visionaries, they just didn't have the right medium. This is my opinion at least.

Now, it's time for the much stranger story of the archives of the worst Christmas calendar ever.

Because no. It doesn't end. Danish journalist Anders Lund Madsen has made a 24 episode radio program called Hullet i Jorden (The hole in the ground) to investigate what happened and what came next, and I must admit, I haven't listened to it yet.

Thing is, there's a whole conspiracy theory about this Christmas calendar.

Since Christmas calendars of the past occasionally get to grace the screen again, it's not customary to delete the archives, which is why we can watch many of the old shows again and again. Some of the very oldest were overwritten though, to make space for the News broadcasts, which is why we only have scraps left of some of the shows from the 60s. But this happened to Jul og grønne skove, and pretty early after the show had aired too. DR's archives for the show? GONE.

A viewer had recorded all episodes, and DR found out, so they asked him to send them in a taxi so they could get them back. The VHS tapes? GONE. He's tried to contact DR several times, but no one has been able to answer what happened.

Remember how I mentioned Poul and Nulle got out of the blasted hole in the Christmas calendar of 1981? Well. That clip, guess what? IT'S GONE. Someone cut it out for the rerun in 1987. A woman working for DR's archives stubbornly looked for that clip, and that's how she found the clip.

Only half the episodes are available on DR's archival site, Bonanza, and the rest are lost media. The conspiracy theory is that someone working at DR has purposefully worked to erase this blight on Christmas calendars from existence. Is that the truth? I don't know, but I do know that it has been erased in part three times.

I hoped you enjoyed this walk down the insane history of the worst Christmas calendar ever.

Sources: https://juleweb.dk/julekalendere/jul-og-groenne-skove/ https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/webfeature/poul-og-nulle https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/kultur/historie/konspirationsteori-nogen-vil-skaffe-skandaleramt-dr-julekalender-af-vejen

[someone-you-do-not-know]

I'm so excited to watch Christmas calendars this year

Do you have any favorites or recommendations? 😊💖

Oh God, so many– *Goes off.*

I've always been a huge sucker for Christmas stuff, and every year, I watch 2-4 Christmas calendars – ones I haven't watched before, mostly. I've watched a few Swedish and Norwegian ones, but mostly Danish ones, so those are the ones I'll focus on (my Swedish mutual recommended some Swedish ones here).

First of all, I have to recommend Pyrus. It's a four season Christmas calendar about the nisser living in the Danish National Archives. Pyrus is a young nisse who's learning to be an archive nisse, and the humans working at the archive are also always up to something. It's not only fun, but also very educational – it was the show that taught me about Santa Claus' origins, for example. Seasons 1-3 are best (2 is the bestest of the best). Season 1 is called Alletiders Jul, season 2 is Alletiders Nisse, season 3 is Alletiders Julemand, and season 4 is Alletiders Eventyr. There's a movie too, but it's not worth watching. There's a lot of songs, and they're really good. Some of the special effects look dated, but it was very new when they were made. You need a subscription to TV2 to watch whichever one they choose to stream this year (it's season 1 this year), or a dvd set, though, so it's a little difficult to watch it.

Second one I'll recommend isn't really one I love that much, but it's iconic. Everyone quotes it in Denmark. The Julekalender (yes, that's the name) is about three nisser looking for the key to the spilledåse to save Gammel Nok. It's satirical and more for adults, and all roles are played by De Nattergale, a Danish band. The nisse characters speak a mix of English and Danish, and the humans mostly speak in a West Jutland dialect. It's another TV2 production, but it has been available every year for streaming around Christmas since 2017, because it's such a classic.

This next one is controversial, but I really liked it. Den Anden Verden from 2016 isn't the most Christmas, but the sets and costuming is amazing. It's about a pair of sisters, where one discovers that she can go to a fairy tale world when she is on the edge of death. Huge tw for suicide attempts/suicidal ideations. I love it for the bond between the sisters and the fairy tales they tell, but I know a lot of people thought it was too adult and didn't have enough Christmas in it. It's the first DR production, so as long as you're on a VPN for Denmark, you can stream it on dr.dk.

Okay, final two, even though I'm sure you're already overwhelmed.

Julestjerner, which marks the end of the musical Christmas calendars, is about a family moving out of the big city, where they end up putting up a Christmas show. There's also nisser, but they're not from where you think. The characters in it are a bit exaggerated, but it's very nice. And it has the best cello solo ever. This one is also on DR.

I'm a sucker for a period piece, and that's why I must recommend last year's Julehjertets Hemmelighed. It takes place in the 1800s, and is about Karen who is turning 13, which means she will no longer be able to see her best friend, the nisse Rumle. They perform a ritual, but then everything at the farm she works at starts going wrong. It's a good mix of Christmas and some darker elements for older viewers. Another DR production.

Honorable mentions: Jesus og Josefine, Jul i Valhal, Nissebanden (3 seasons), Tinka (3 seasons), Bamses julerejse, Yallahrup Færgeby, Torvet, and Jul i Gammelby (this one I'm going to watch for the first time this year). Honorable Swedish mention: Storm på lugna gatan (Danish title: Storm på Stillevænget). Honorable Norwegian mention: Snøfall (Danish title: Snefald).

There's also the ones for 2023, but I will stop now.