December 4.
This blog is called Danish Things – and today you will get a little taste of Danish culture and Danish Christmas traditions. 🙂
It is all about Christmas decorations – I chose the paper cone as the first one.
Many of the things the Danes decorate their trees with today dates back to the late 1800s. Denmark lost the war against Austria and Prussia in 1864 and had to part with Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg. It changed the way the Danes decorated for Christmas. We started to decorate our Christmas trees with national and military symbols such as flag garlands with the Danish flag, military trumpets and drums. The oldest paper cone, which dates back to 1866, has a military decoration – a brave soldier who holds a beech branch in the air. The beech branch is a symbol of Denmark.
The paper cone is a more posh version of the paper cone the grocer folded to put the goodies in. Today many of the paper cones that hangs on the Christmas trees in Denmark are also filled with candy or small cookies. We have a famous Christmas song written by a Danish composer Peter Faber back in 1848. It is called “Højt fra træets grønne top” and I don’t know how to translate that! In the lyrics, he writes about “first you look at the beautiful tree and then you eat it” – you don’t eat the tree literally just the goodies that are hanging on the tree and that fits the present time.
Traditionally made a Danish Christmas cornet is made of paper – it can be ALL types – from glossy paper, music sheets, handmade paper to the lace-like doilies. The traditional paper cone is made by turning the paper into the shape of a cone, and then glue a handle on. The handle can be wide or narrow – long or short.
The present times a paper cone could be made of other materials than paper – and the handle could be made of cloth, ribbon or wire. It is only up to your own imagination. I have previously made Christmas cones out of felt, with embroidered snowflakes on and I remember, when I was little, that my mother sewed Christmas cones out of fabric.
Today you get two sheets with paper cones – 3 kinds where I have chosen the paper – and a template.
Just cut out the paper cones – put a little glue on the logo and then assembled. The handle could be the one that I made or you can experiment with alternatives. If you use my version cut out the handle and glue it on the inside of the cone.
Enjoy.
Today you can bake your honey cakes – if you made the dough yesterday 🙂
You will find a print friendly version of “Paper cones” here
