The Definitive Guide to Danish Christmas Pop-Culture (2009)

Every night from December 1st to 24th, the two national Danish television stations (DR or TV2) air Christmas Calendars:  24-part serials with Christmas themes.  Originally, these programs were targeted at children and correlated to a nightly paper advent calendar that kids could open at home.  I have to admit this is something I think is really cool.  It's not something you can really do in America because of religious considerations, but the concept is nice all the same.  The closest thing we have is the 25 Days of Christmas on ABC Family, but honestly, who has the time to watch an entire Christmas movie each night?

So, using my limited knowledge drawn from various basic explanations by my host-family and neighbors (and help from Google Translate on the Danish Wikipedia), I bring you a definitive guide to three of this year's Christmas Calendar shows.  Get ready, because I'm going to give you so many details that you will feel like you were here watching them with me.

Pacten (The Pact)
Let's start with the basics:  this show airs on DR1 at 7:30 and is the only new Christmas Calendar this season.  But, I've only seen it once, so . . . that might be all I can tell you.  Really, I think I'd like Pacten, but I can't watch it on my own since I rely on Danes to translate.  Pacten is one of those fantasy-world, secular Christmas shows, with nisser (elves), an evil snow queen, and a LotR-esque soundtrack.  I get the feeling that Pacten is an attempt to draw the older kids in by veering away from the religious theme and actually having some really creepy elements.  I really have no idea what the plot is, but I know it has something to do with how only kids who believe in the nisser can see them (or the evil snow queen), and one of them has to go find "the pact" in order to save them:  or the evil snow queen will kill them all.  Also, creepy demons kept attacking one kid in a forest, and he could throw dust on them to make them melt away into the ground. 

Jul på Vesterbro (Christmas in Vesterbro)
Vesterbro, if you don't know, is the old meat-packing district in Copenhagen, and Jul på Vesterbro, on DR2, is an adult (comedy, social commentary with songs like "The Social Welfare Blues") Christmas Calendar, originally produced in 2003.  I know I have a biased perspective (since I've only been around for one Christmas in Denmark), but I get the feeling that Jul på Vesterbro is pretty famous.  When I was buying æbleskiver in Tivoli a few weeks ago, the guy in the kiosk had a song from it playing on his phone, and he proceeded to tell me how superior it was to the children's Christmas calendars; I heard some drunk guys singing it at the train station on Friday night, and, finally, the creepy animatronic penguins in the window of a shop on Strøget (the main shopping street in CPH) were singing it last week (complete with one penguin threatening to stab the other with an icicle).  One Danish comedian (Anders Mattheson, who apparently is friends with Ellen DeGeneres) plays all the parts:  from the pølser salesman on Strøget, to the salesman's junkie son (and his girlfriend), to the woman from the city who comes to help them out.  Unfortunately for both of us, I don't know anything about the plot.  But I do know that at the end of each episode the characters look up in the air, confused, as the narrator talks about what will happen next time.  The character also gets a "surprise" everday as  Christmas calendar (the surprise is always a beer hanging for the wall that he bought for himself).  The theme song--if you're interested--is here.

Jesus & Josefine
Before I start with this description, you need to pronounce the name currenctly:  "YAY-Seuss oh YO-sephina."  It just makes the theme song that much better.  Jesus & Josefine was also produced in 2003 and is a children's Christmas Calendar on TV2.  My host family watches it almost every night (sometimes I watch it with them), and so they've been able explain a lot to me.  I love it for its somewhat heretical plot (in some Christian traditions), and ridiculously catchy Europop songs. 
So, Josefine is a religion-doubting Danish girl living in Copenhagen with her family.  Her mom is a pastor, and her brother Lukas is . . . adorable.  I have no idea what he says, but I laugh every time he makes some humorous interjection.  Anyway, Josephine finds this nativity scene in an antique shop where if she presses her finger on the manger, she lands like a meteor in Nazareth, 12 CE, coming out of some coffin at Mary, Joseph, and Jesus' house.  She becomes friends with Jesus, and then somehow ends up taking him back to Denmark, where he is briefly trapped because Joseph closed the lid of the coffin in Nazareth.  In the meantime, Josefine's parents think Jesus is crazy because he says his dad is God, and taking Jesus to church ends up being a bad idea.  Josefine and her friend Oskar even make Jesus resurrect Oskar's pet rat, quoting the story of Lazarus in the Bible.  Eventually, Jesus learns he's going to die (and this it the possibly heretical part), so he decides he doesn't want to be the son of God and decides to become a gladiator instead (GENIUS, right??).  The modern world becomes Hell, and the evil old man who owns the antique shop tries to stop Josefine from going back to Nazareth to fix the problem (so ends today's episode).
However, the best part about Jesus & Josefine are the subtle cultural references that I may or may not be understanding correctly.  I mean, first the show is obviously an attempt at remedying the drop of Christianity in Danish culture, which is evident through the plot, the copious amounts of praying, and the scene where Josefine's mom is preaching to a big church with only about 10 people in the pews.  But in today's episode, I particularly enjoyed when the evil guy drew back the shades at Josefine's house to show her that the entire world was Hell.  Hell, apparently, consists of smoke stacks that shoot out flames and three nuclear reactor cooling towers.  Fabulous subtle message, there, TV2!   I also thought one scene where Josefine was pouring some non-descript pale yellow beverage from a bottle into cups for Jesus and Oskar was a little humorous, although Kirsten assured me it was "apple juice" when I made a comment about it.

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On another note, I just spent the last hour watching a list of favorite Christmas songs on DR2 with Rene and Kirsten.  A little more than half of them were British or American songs, and I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that a large majority of the songs were from the 80s: Wham!'s "Last Christmas," Run DMC's "Christmas in Hollis," Mel & Kim's version of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," and, of course, the Danish favorite "Jul Det Cool" by rap-group McEinar, among others.  Rene and Kirsten then both observed that all the Danish Christmas songs are making fun of Christmas (especially the materialistic aspects), instead of singing about Christmas.  I can't give you any more names of songs, but, the videos spoke for themselves as Kirsten and Rene sat on the couch:  "I wish you could hear these lyrics!  They're so ridiculous they're not even really translatable."  I actually find this pretty interesting, for a country that loves both Christmas and shopping so much.

At any rate, there's more in my head to write.  Hopefully I can get it down before I leave, but who knows, at this point?