The Year of Living Danishly

by Helen Russell

  It’s gone OK. Better than I had feared. But I’m happy to have the house back to ourselves at the end of the week. Since there’s still nothing going on in the environs of Sticksville, we do some nesting. I wash everything in sight and Lego Man demonstrates his full array of Viking-esque powers by assembling an Ikea cot single-handedly. We hang a print of the Danish alphabet, complete with the extra three letters and a few suspect squiggles, in our spare room. My desk gets shipped out into the hallway and all manner of baby paraphernalia is manoeuvered in.

  On 31 December, the country finally wakes from its snowy slumber. Denmark’s New Year’s Eve rituals begin at 6pm with the monarch’s speech – something that started in 1942 during the German occupation when the king called for national unity. We’re celebrating the passing of the last year and welcoming the one to come at The Viking’s house, and I’ve offered to help him cook. He fills me in on a few Danish customs while I poke uncertainly at a cauldron of green mush that he assures me is ‘traditional stewed kale’. This, he tells me, is served with potatoes (natch) and cured saddle of pork for New Year’s Eve – yes, Danes are firmly back in the pork saddle after a brief dabble with duck over Christmas.

  We chat and occasionally stir things, or jiggle a roasting tin, with the Queen’s speech in the background. I tell him that I’m surprised by how fond Danes seem to be of their monarch and The Viking reveals that he’s a big fan, too.

  ‘Margrethe gets these crazy high approval ratings despite the fact that most people here probably wouldn’t describe themselves as monarchists,’ he tells me. In fact, the Danish monarchy is the most popular in Europe and a poll published in the Danish newspaper Politiken revealed that 77 per cent of Danes are happy with their queen.

  ‘We don’t think royals in general are great,’ The Viking clarifies, ‘we just like our lot.’ I ask him why he thinks this is and he says: ‘It’s such a small country that most people will have seen her in the flesh or even met her at some point. And she’s just a nice, normal woman. She stinks, but she’s lovely.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘—Of cigarettes, I mean. She’s a massive chain smoker – but we don’t tend to mind. It just makes her seem flawed, like one of us.’ And there you have it. Liz: next time you feel an annus horribilis looming, try lighting up.

  In this year’s speech, as far as I can make out, Margrethe tells everyone to keep being tolerant but to try and be a bit nicer to each other.

  ‘Is that right?’ I ask The Viking, unsure of my shoddy translating skills and not as fast on the Google Translate app as I used to be with my nine-month-pregnant fat fingers.

  ‘You’ve pretty much got it,’ The Viking tells me. ‘Margrethe,’ I’m enjoying how he insists on referring to her by her Christian name as if she’s an old family friend, ‘Margrethe generally tells us that we’re doing OK, but that we could all try a bit harder.’

  After this, pundits discuss any hidden meanings in what she’s said for the following 50 minutes before concluding that her message is indeed: ‘keep being nice’. It’s all very civilised. What’s less couth, I learn, are the other Danish New Year’s Eve traditions.

  ‘We used to blow up each other’s mailboxes and smash crockery against friends’ front doors at midnight to welcome in the new year,’ The Viking tells me. Lego Man, having just invested in a new Scandi designer letterbox, looks horrified at this prospect. ‘But not too many people do this any more,’ The Viking assures him. ‘Though it’s a shame about the plate thing,’ he adds, wistfully. ‘You could tell how popular you were from how many broken plates you had on your doorstep the next day.’ He sighs, nostalgically.

  Now, he assures us, most celebrations tend to be restricted to ‘jumping off the sofa at midnight, then going outside to look at the fireworks, then watching a black-and-white film of an old lady being brought food by her butler’. The sofa part symbolises leaping into the year ahead. The fireworks are just for fun. And the old lady?

  ‘Yeah, no one knows why we do that part. But it’s tradition.’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  Once the other guests arrive, we eat, and I come round to the idea of stewed kale. Then we count down (in Danish) to the second that The Viking’s digital watch flicks to midnight, trying to ignore the cheers and celebrations of people in other apartments with premature timepieces.

  ‘Ti! Ni! Otte! Syv! Seks! Fem! Fire! Tre! To…’ we chant, before, ‘Godt Nytår!’ (‘Happy new year!’ in Danish).

  There is hugging and kissing and skål-ing all round, and then the furniture-jumping begins. As a walking blimp by this point, I am the designated photographer – exempt as the rest of our party all clamber aboard The Viking’s sofa. On the count of three, everyone jumps.

  ‘Aaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh!’

  They let out a blood-curdling roar as they leap and I press the shutter, capturing for all time the end of our year of living Danishly. The Viking, arms raised in celebration, is letting out a war cry, mid-air. Other revellers look equally animated, limbs tangled, and Lego Man, I’m amused to note, is grinning with an expression of pure joy as he executes a sort of long jump into the calendar year ahead. He looks happy. And relaxed, and confident and handsome.

  The moment has been frozen – the digital image encoded in a series of ones and zeroes, electronically recording the split second just before socked feet slid on smooth pine wood floors, resulting in splinters, bruised bottoms and a suspected sprained ankle that one girl probably won’t feel until morning when she sobers up.

  I study the image fondly as plasters, painkillers and yet more schnapps are sought out by our host to heal his guests’ various ailments.

  It won’t be like this next year, I can’t help thinking. There’ll be three of us for starters, and who knows where we’ll even be by then. But in the present moment, this feels right.

  Once the jumping injuries have been attended to, we troop down the stairs from The Viking’s red-brick apartment and convene in the street, along with all the other residents of The Big Town. A few revellers are dressed in funny hats and I learn that these are another Danish New Year’s ‘tradition’. Looking around, I spot a leprechaun, a pizza hat and even a pølser cap. Wow, I marvel, Danes love junk food so much they theme their millinery around it… There are also lot of comedy plastic glasses on show. These range from the Dame Edna Everage to early-years Elton John and even physics teacher-esque visors.

  ‘Are the funny glasses another Danish New Year’s Eve tradition?’ I ask The Viking.

  ‘No – they’re to protect your eyes from the fireworks.’ Oh.

  ‘Should we be wearing some too?’ I ask, concerned, but The Viking makes a ‘pffff’ noise as though I’m fussing over nothing. Having grown up with harrowing annual public safety campaigns warning of the dangers of returning to a lit rocket, it’s with some alarm that I witness the DIY pyrotechnics on display in the main high street of The Big Town. I’m also a little perturbed to note that many teenagers and even younger kids seem to be letting off gunpowder propelled missiles, too.

  ‘Is that legal?’ I can’t help asking.

  The Viking tells me that although you have to be over eighteen years of age to buy what he describes as ‘the major fireworks’ (‘like, beyond a certain amount of grams of gunpowder…’), Danish children are allowed to buy many ‘lesser’ fireworks themselves, and often start doing so at a young age. ‘I was probably younger than ten the first time I got to shoot off rockets by myself,’ The Viking tells me casually, as one whizzes past us at a right angle (in this case, a wrong angle). Roman candles start spitting to the left, spiders of white light spill out to our right, and a willow tree of green splays out across the sky, scattering debris as far as the bakery. A few more low-rent rockets do their worst and finally, a waterfall of gold starts to spurt from the not-quite-sky, getting stuck on some guttering above the toy shop and spraying its bounty liberally about twenty feet from our heads. Fire droplets spit upwards, then rage down, lighting up the night
and silhouetting the manhood of the porny pony and the cats with boobs in their fountain.

  Ahh, Denmark, how I’ve grown to love you, I think, while using Lego Man as a human shield.

  Back inside, we eat dessert – a traditional marzipan ring cake – washed down with champagne, as our party raises a toast to the year ahead.

  ‘Skål!’

  When we leave, a couple of hours later, a sprinkling of powdery snow is starting to fall. We walk past candlelit homes and inhale the heady combination of gunpowder and gløgg (Danish mulled wine) that wafts from every window. I’m feeling incredibly festive now – more so, I think, than ever before.

  On New Year’s Day, my first without a hangover for, I calculate, twenty years (‘Dear Liver, I’m sorry. I promise to do better. Yours, for as long as you’ll keep me going…’), we tune in to watch the Prime Minister’s New Year speech. I have to remind myself once again not to expect to see Birgitte Nyborg with her lovely bun and twitchy-nosed smile. Instead, Helle Thorning-Schmidt starts echoing the queen’s sentiments and reminds us that January is an opportunity for a new start. I’m well aware of changes the next calendar year will be bringing to our house and the ju-jitsu junior in my stomach is showing off all his (80 per cent likely) moves tonight. We go to bed and Lego Man falls asleep straight away, but I can’t seem to drop off. Sleeping on my back is out, as junior will crush my vital organs. Sleeping on my front is out because I now look like I’m shoplifting cushions. So I lie on my side, and then wonder what to do with my arms. I try everything from a sort of Michael Jackson Thriller pose to outstretched in front of me like a furry koala pencil topper I had when I was eight. But it’s no use. So I get up and pad around the house for a bit.

  The sky is wonderfully clear and the stars are out in a way I’ve never seen before. Great swirls of speckled light compete with brighter, bigger luminous spheres in a crowded, glittering sky. With no light pollution to dull the view, the sky looks bigger somehow, and higher up. As I stare, I think I see a shooting star, though this could just be the blurred vision that my midwife warned me about as another happy side effect of pregnancy (varicose veins, anyone?). I stop staring up at the night sky but find that I still can’t see straight. There are two of everything, including the Christmas tree, which is jolly, and a pile of dirty dishes waiting to be tackled (less fun). I feel dizzy, then as though my whole body is heaving and stirring. There is a lurching feeling. Like everything inside me wants to escape. It hurts. A lot. But then it goes away again. Weird, I think, and head to the fridge to have a nose around. If in doubt, snack. But then it happens again. And again. I glance, casually, at the clock on the kitchen wall, watching the second hand stutter around for several minutes until I’m sure. Shit, I think. And then: This is real.

  Slowly, gripping the walls for support, I make my way to the bedroom to fill Lego Man in on what’s been going on and let him know that our Christmas wish is being granted – slightly sooner than expected.

  * * *

  Things I’ve learned this month:

  Danes are big fans of liquorice, Chris Rea, Top Gun and schnapps

  Even Salman Rushdie has experienced the benefits of living Danishly

  You can counter the consumerism of Christmas with moss and mushrooms

  Enforced family time can be A Good Thing

  Singing is always An Excellent Thing in Denmark

  Life is about to change immeasurably

  Epilogue

  Made in Denmark

  After eighteen hours of psychedelic pain, much swearing, and several snegles, a slimy, squirming creature is placed on my chest for a heartbeat before being whisked away into special care. I drift in and out of consciousness for a while (minutes? hours? days?) until finally I’m in a wheelchair being pushed towards a tiny plastic incubator that looks a lot like an Ikea storage box.

  ‘Your son,’ a nurse tells me.

  From my low vantage point, all I can see is a squashed-up face with tubes coming out of it and a giant woolly hat. A heat lamp is placed above him and he is naked apart from the hat and a nappy. I taste salt and find I’m crying.

  ‘Is he OK?’

  ‘He is going to be quite fine,’ the nurse tells me as a doctor begins removing the tubes and checking him over. ‘He can come down to your room tomorrow.’ I’m doused by a wave of relief.

  ‘So he’s all right?’

  ‘He is more than all right,’ the doctor tells me, whipping off the woollen hat with a flourish to reveal a shock of bright red hair: ‘he is a Viking!’

  This is a surprise. Neither Lego Man nor I have any flame-haired family members and I quickly scan back to try and remember if I’ve ever teased gingers in the past (Katie Brooking from junior school, I can’t quite remember, but if I did, I’m sorry). Somehow, our son has joined the 1 per cent of the world’s population to have red hair. The rarity of this has apparently been drawing a steady crowd of visitors since he’s been here, as most babies born in Denmark are blonde or bald. Lego Man, who has been shuttling between the postnatal and neonatal wards, checking we’re both still breathing and developing a dependency on syrupy hospital coffee, is still in shock. Nurses, doctors, and passing midwives have all been calling in and congratulating him on his ‘true Viking’ son.

  As soon as the rubbery creature is lowered into my arms, there is a winding thump of love for him in my chest and I never want to let him go. We’re kept in hospital for a week before I’m patched up enough to go home and yet more visitors travel from far and wide (or at least the other end of the hospital) to see the fabled Viking child. They come bearing gifts of grapes, fleecy breast pads and knitwear, including a hat that the head midwife knitted during the birth. Yes, that’s right: my active labour was so long that the woman in charge had time to craft clothing. She may well have sheared the sheep, too.

  We struggle to know quite what to call the new arrival. Every male moniker we’d had on our ‘possible names’ list now seems insufficiently strong to cope with the might of the Titan mini god we’ve created. And so he is affectionately referred to as ‘Little Red’.

  ‘Not “Monkey” or “Anus”?’ Lego Man checks.

  ‘No,’ I tell him firmly.

  Once I’m discharged, we’re offered the opportunity to stay an extra week at the adjacent ‘Stork Hotel’ as a family. This is for new parents who want to ease the transition from ‘shit, we have a baby!’ to ‘shit, we’re taking a baby home!’ Here, nurses are on hand night and day for advice on how on earth to take care of the squalling pink thing that has somehow sprung from your loins.

  ‘You wouldn’t get that on the NHS,’ Lego Man observes, leafing through the brochure of the well-appointed rooms at next door’s hotel that could be ours for just 300 DKK (£32 or $55) a night. I agree that it’s tempting but after a week away already and with a dog languishing at canine holiday camp (kennels), we decide to go home. We’re both frightened, feeling a lot like we’re not grown-up enough to be dealing with this, and wondering how on earth hospital staff have seen fit to allow us custody of an actual human being. (Me: ‘I can’t even keep our houseplants alive!’ Lego Man: ‘We have houseplants?’)

  But we’re doing it. We go home.

  Back in Sticksville, Friendly Neighbour has visited, having received the ‘we’re parents!’ panic group text from Lego Man the week before. She’s left a wooden stork outside our house, as is the custom in Denmark, to let all and sundry know that there’s a new baby in town and encourage the postwoman and the free sheet delivery boys to tread lightly for a while. She’s also left a care parcel of muslins and a note that reads: ‘Because I hear they puke a lot ’

  I’m touched. The Mr Beards, who haven’t acknowledged my existence since winter drew in and they all went into hibernation, have left a knitted bib with a tractor on it in our mailbox. The girls from choir have dropped off a toy elephant and a card that they’ve all signed. American Mom stops by with two washing up bowls full of carefully packaged home-cooked meals to stock up our
freezer. Helena C and The Viking bring cake and an achingly cool Danish designer kids’ dining set. I well up. Or at least, more tears join the ones already brimming in my now permanently wet eyes. As well as having acquired a new child and some pretty extensive embroidery around my ‘lady cave’, I also appear to have developed emotional incontinence, though this could just be the sleep deprivation. My limbs pulse with tiredness but still I get up to stare at my son and tell him I love him ten times an hour before poking Lego Man and saying: ‘Look what we made!’

  Despite crawling with exhaustion, I feel vital. It’s as though I’m raw (not like that. Though also, FYI, exactly like that), as though everything matters more now. The world seems saturated with meaning and my son is a blank slate – a little life who’s never consumed junk food or watched Jeremy Kyle or been disillusioned by anything.

  ‘Having a child is like having your heart outside your body,’ American Mom tells me, and she’s right. I want to protect him and make everything bright and shiny for him. Just having a small person around makes me resolve to do my best to make the world better. And in this respect, Denmark suddenly makes sense. With its world-renowned work-life balance, its focus on children and education and the great strides that have been made in terms of gender equality, Denmark is the smartest place for us to be right now.