#like my dinosaur piggy bank which no longer has a use because of the bottom part going missing lol

[spidersunday]

i think i should start plugging my headphones' charger into the usb port on my lamp so it stops putting so much stress on the cord

[onthemazewall]

Fastlavn

One of the appeals of Denmark, before we moved here was Fastlavn, a secularized Christian holiday that seemed very much like Danish Halloween. I was disappointed to find that few people actually still go wassailing. Mainly it’s about the buns, delicious confections either with varying types of flakey pastry and fillings. The most elaborate versions are like croissants filled with custard, whipped cream and jam. I actually prefer the simpler old fashioned ones with a heavier pastry and simple jam or custard inside. It’s also about hitting the cat in the barrel. Pretty much every nursery school holds an event where the kids dress up in costume and take turns hitting a barrel of strength commensurate with their age group in hopes of being the one to smash it wide open open. In case you are now imagining a piñata, this is waaaay harder. It seems to be normal for it to take an hour. There’s a crowning of the cat king and queen, the ones who make the first break and the get the last slat down and lots of laughing and noise. You can also have private parties, which I have vowed to do next year, and all the towns seem to have a public festival as well.

We were invited to Slagelse to take part in the public display with some good friends and then go wassailing. The marching band and public hitting of the cat in a barrel, there thankfully is no longer a black cat in the barrels, was fun, but too crowded and my kids weren’t up to waiting 15 minutes per turn, especially with me having to mind children in two different lines, but the wassailing was awesome.

Unlike trick-or-treating, where you have a simple three word chant, in the case of doing a “rasle”. You have a choice of two seven line songs, one for buns and one for money. We opted for the bun song, because while buns threatens mischief, money threatens to kiss the house’s inhabitants and we didn’t think the kids would be up for that. I’d heard the song a few times, as I assume my son had also, but neither of us had it memorized. I’m not sure about my son’s buddy, but with small child shyness it fell mostly on the adults to sing it with the people opening the door chiming in. It was the best of neighborhood participation. At first we got coins. Lots of coins. I had expected one house, one coin, not piles of small change. None of us had thought to bring a bag, I just didn’t know what was appropriate, so we were using a sippy cup bottom. My daughter immediately insisted on being the cup holder, because it had become a big rattle, which I believe is what “rasle” translates to...

The kids (ages 1.5,3 and 4) got really excited when we got to a house where instead of change, the woman opened up a tin of candies, imagine someone whipping out a fancy box of chocolates and you’ve got the right idea. The kids were given more fudges, chocolates and liquorices that their little hands could hold and they immediately became sticky with treats. My son’s dinosaur costume still has hard candies stuck to it! The American in me was questioning the choice to let my children eat random unwrapped candy from a stranger, but this was our old neighborhood and I don't think there are really 80 year old ladies sitting around hoping that stray children practicing a fading tradition would knock on her door so that she could poison them. At another house, the owner asked if the kids were going to perform mischief on her and when they just stared (I think the word may be archaic enough that they didn’t know it), she showed them how to shake her lawn ornaments and be rascals. A highlight was a house where a man answered in jockey shorts and a shirt (no, that wasn’t the exciting part, though I am always impressed at the blissful lack of modesty Danes show) and his son brought out a tray of actual fresh home baked Fastlavn buns. The kids each got one filled with Nutella and at this point didn’t show that much interest in continuing. We did a few more houses, one where a very elderly woman wanted to give the kids 10 Kr pieces (about $1.80) and instead handed them 50 øre (15 cents), which I still felt was plenty, another where they were holding a birthday party and asked if maybe we’d take cake, since they had piles and so on.

After we’d taken the bus back to Næstved and the children were refreshed, we did our own street. I mean, we’d done Halloween there and it felt wrong to do that and not Fastlavn. Being primed on Slagelse, my son now had the song memorized enough to sing it by himself from some prompting from me. I had also memorized it after an hour of repetition. It was absolutely my favorite part, when confused neighbors would open the door, Walter would launch into a tuneless rendition of “Fastlavn er mit navn, boller vil jeg have...”and the person would realize we were out wassailing, inevitably my son would falter on the third line and the neighbor would help them through the rest. Admittedly have the time, we just left out the lines about threats of mischief and end it at kids want treats. Despite being told that people might be annoyed being hit up twice in a year for treats, our elderly neighbors were thrilled. We got many a thank you for stopping by. The kids got whole candy bars, fruit snacks, bags of gummy candies and more change. All in all, they raked in 100 KR (about 18 dollars) each. There had been one unprepared house in Slagelse where the guy actually handed us a 50 KR (about 8 dollars) note. I have no idea what we’re going to do with all this money. I’m tempted to buy a piggy bank and let them hoard it till they’re old enough to understand how to spend it.  At any rate it was awesome and I’m glad my kids only have to wait six months for their next treat hunting, costume wearing holiday.