Danish French Christmas with Anne from Luvaville in Copenhagen

Anne Duramois is the co-founder of an international travel site and lifestyle blog for parents called, luvaville. We met Anne for lunch during CPH kids last August, and she’s an absolutely lovely lady, living in Copenhagen together with her French husband, Laurent and their two children Liv age 3 and Stella age 1.

We’ve had a chat with Anne, about Christmas and traditions. How she prepare for and celebrate Christmas with her family in Denmark. Read on…

To you, what is most important about Christmas?
To maintain and pass on Christmas traditions as well as creating some new ones for our family with a mix of French and Danish traditions. But most important is being together as a family.

Would you share your favourite childhood Christmas memory?
Oh, I love Christmas so choosing only one favorite memory is difficult. Christmas cookie baking and marzipan sweetmeats has always been a family activity. But what I liked best as a child was the beautiful snow landscape and village we made with elfs skiing and iceskating. I’m very keen on passing on the traditions to my girls. They are still a little young so we make it with deers and bigger elements and they are allowed to play with them.

© Anne Duramois, Snow Landscape

Where will you do your Christmas shopping this year, and are there any favourite Scandi brands being wrapped up?
Illums Bolighus, a fantastic department store in Copenhagen is a number one destination for all Scandinavian designer and interior items and the place we go when shopping for our Danish and French family members, with brands such as Georg Jensen, Royal Copenhagen, Bodum, Hay and Normann Copenhagen.
For the children, we like to shop online; Smallable, Bonton and Bonpoint, all with a great selection of wonderful French toys and clothes. For me, on my wish list I have beautiful lamps from Thora Finnsdottir and the new Bestlite from Gubi.

Do you have any Pre Christmas fun parties with family or friends?
Despite the fact that Christmas time is a rather stressful time in our family work wise, we always try to gather some friends and their kids to a Christmas crafts day, I always did that as a child too, and I loved it! We have tons of colorful papers, stickers, glitter, glazed paper. We would enjoy some rounds shaped pastry called “Æbleskiver” served together with mulled wine.

Æbleskiver, a Danish délicatesse served alongside a mug of gløgg, Danish style mulled wine.

Do you have any advice on how to create a true Scandinavian Christmas Home?
Use the nature as much as you can. Go to the woods and bring home some leafs and pine branches to use as a decor. (A regular flower shop would have them too but it’s so much nicer to find them yourself). If you want a more modern touch, you can always spice it up with some neon coloured decoration. I use a mix of materials: wood, ceramic, leather, fur and metal. This year the Hama beads have made their way into our house with my daughter having her own little decoration factory.


© Anne Duramois, from her Christmas decoarated home in Copenhagen

So how will you be spending Christmas Eve, will Santa be visiting?
It all starts on the 22nd! We go select our tree in the forest and on the 23rd we decorate it, eat Julegrød (rice poridge served with cinnamon and sugar) and drink beer.
On the 24th we will be preparing the Christmas dinner all day and at 4pm the whole family will watch the Disney Christmas Show on TV, it’s a tradition and it kickstarts the programme for Christmas Eve. We change to more formal evening wear and start our Christmas dinner at 5:30-6pm, followed by everyone dancing around the tree and singing Christmas songs. Then we open the presents one by one afterwards… It lasts the whole evening!
The French Santa visits during the night on the 24th and in the morning of the 25th the kids get some presents.

Will you be celebrating Christmas on Luvaville?
Yes, we’ve already started with and Advent Competition for our readers, with one winner every Sunday in December. The first competition ends on Sunday 2nd of December. You can find the competition on luvaville.com, open now!

2 thoughts on “Danish French Christmas with Anne from Luvaville in Copenhagen

  1. Sounds like a very nice Christmas celebration, Rafia. Being together with your loved ones, keeping traditions and creating memories for years to come.

    And thank you for advice regarding Christmas shopping. I wish I was so organised that I would have done it throughout the year. Would probably have saved time, money and made the whole Christmas celebration more stress free and enjoyable.

  2. loved reading the blog..very interesting. there are so many lovely memories of childhood, opening the pressies, wearing new outfits, visiting grandparents etc.

    i shop around all year for good deals and buy from all the major high street brands for presents.

    we spend the christmas eve by visiting a santa’s grotto, then the markets. later we all get together for a nice family dinner.

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