On Saturday July 18th Astoria, Oregon is celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Astoria Column, one of our beloved community landmarks. As part of this FREE centennial celebration, the Lower Columbia Danish Society will host a booth from 11 am to 4 pm in at Heritage Square in downtown Astoria.

This will be a great way to meet members of the Danish Society, learn about activities we sponsor throughout the year, and discover a way to get involved in appreciation of Danish culture. At the booth we will feature

• Information about our organization and a sign up for new members (membership is free)

• A raffle to win a home-made kranskage (Danish Crown Cake) baked by one of our members, the proceeds of which will fund a scholarship for our local Danish Senior Princess ($5 per ticket)

• Kits to make traditional Danish julhjerte (paper hearts to decorate your home and Christmas tree)

• Our famous recipe for æbleskiver, the Danish pastry we make and serve at Festival

The event itself will be family-friendly, with many booths from a variety of community organizations, music, hot dogs and hamburgers, soda, water, ice cream, and specially-made beer to celebrate the occasion.

Stop by our booth for a visit and enjoy the rest of the Celebration!

Come and help set up the Dane’s booth for festival. We will be setting up the physical booth structure as well as the back up kitchen area. All help is most welcome !

The updated booth is much easier to set up, so you don’t need to be super strong or super tall to be a great help.

This stationary parade will be at noon on June 13th on Marine Dr in Astoria between 16th and 17th Streets . Come and make sure Danish spirit is well represented. This year’s grand Marshal’s are the Dane’s own Alan and Carla Oja !

Bring a Danish flag to wave if you have one. Many folks show their Danish spirit by wearing a Danish bunad (traditional costume) or something sporting Danish colors.

Parking ia available off Marine Drive (please don’t park in the Columbia Maritime Museum lots unless you will also be visiting the Museum).

We will do the final planning for our booth at festival . The schedules will be available to add your name to for a fun volunteer experience ! Planning will begin for our booth at the Astoria Column Anniversary Celebration .

Every year at our “May Meeting” we prepare for the Astoria Scandinavian Midsummer Festival by getting together as a community to mix the dry goods for our æbleskiver batter (which is used to make the sweet, spherical puffs of pastry goodness made to order during Festival) as well as mix, form, and cook the frikadeller (our own special LCDS recipe for yummy Danish pork meatballs). These foods will be served from our Danish Society food booth during Festival.

Volunteering to help at this event is one of the best ways to learn about preparing these two traditional Danish foods. We always serve generous refreshments to keep your energy level topped off, and as a bonus you will get first choice when signing up for slots at the Danish Society booth!

This year we will be preparing the food at the Astoria Senior Center . We always welcome folks to come for the entire event, but even if you can only help for a hour or two, please stop by - many hands make light (and fast) work.

After this meeting, we will post the Festival Booth Schedule on our website so folks can see which volunteer shifts are still open.

PLEASE NOTE THIS APRIL MEETING IS ON THE 2nd Thursday, 09 April, to avoid conflicts with Holy Week services held at the church before Easter Sunday.

Each spring we receive a visit from the Midsummer Festival Court, a group composed of Junior (elementary school) Princesses, Senior (high school) Princesses, and the Crown-Bearer (elementary school or middle school) participate in a variety of community events throughout the year. Adult chaperones help Festival Court youth develop experience in public speaking, community outreach, scholarship, and service.

Join us to listen as court members tell us about their Nordic heritage and show off traditional clothing from their families’ roots in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. After the court presentations, everyone will enjoy delicious snacks.

If you have children potentially interested in being on the Court, this is a good time to talk with chaperones, parents, and kids alike about the Court experience.

Although the program starts at 7 pm, Lower Danish Society members will be on hand 15 minutes or so earlier to help guide folks to the larger community room where we hold this event - it is always well-attended so we use a bigger room!

Denmark and Greenland have been in the news frequently over the last year, and Lower Columbia Danes would like to learn more about Greenlandic geography, history, governance, and culture.

This month, members will be doing independent reading and research about Greenland, then coming together to share what they have learned. The focus of the discussion will be on increasing our knowledge level about this distinct part of Danish society.

Please join us! The discussion will begin after our short business meeting, and we will provide snacks to those attending.

Danes, like many other people in the world, have traditionally marked final days before Lent (a sombre season of 40 days before Easter Sunday) with a carnival atmosphere of special foods, music, dancing, games, and costumes.

Astoria Danes have been celebrating Fastelavn together for many years, and in 2026 we continue that tradition. This is a family-friendly, alcohol-free event, complete with live music, a Costume Contest (this is a great place to test out your latest cosplay creation!), and special prizes for the winners of traditional games we play, including “Slå katten af tønden” (hit the cat out of the barrel, like a Danish version of piñata) and “Ringridning” (ring-riding).

Don’t miss out on this fun evening.

Light snacks including traditional fastelavnsboller (sweet round rolls) and hot cocoa will be served.

Please bring finger-food or a snack to share.

We need volunteers to help us decorate and set up the things we need for our evening’s games at the annual Fastelavn celebration.

This is a great way to meet others in the Danish Society and learn about traditions specific to this event.

Meet us at the St. Mary, Star of the Sea Church Auditorium at the corner of 14th Street and Grand Avenue in Astoria, Oregon.

Our own member Doreen Simonsen will be leading a Zoom program about her time at a Danish Folk High School in 1976-77.  Doreen was a student at Grundtvigs Folkehøjskole Frederiksberg in Hillerød, Denmark for six months, and she worked as a Kitchen Girl there for three months after that.

She still has her notebooks, yearbooks, and photos from that period, and will be speaking about here experience.

“Folk High Schools” are non-academic residential schools where adult students focus on culture, continual learning, and life skills. This is a uniquely Danish institution and we hope you will join with us to hear what participating in that type of program was like for Doreen.

Zoom Meeting ID: 897 8962 1552

Zoom password for this meeting: 175534

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89789621552?pwd=OEF3alkySCtWSUdHZlZZeGViUnhIZz09

Will will not meet in January due to the meeting date falling on New Years Day. Have a Happy New Year and plan on joining us for our February meeting via Zoom !

Stay tuned for the February program.

Decking the halls for the annual Christmas party requires many hands to help set up and decorate the tree, hall, and tables.

Please consider helping us prepare the venue for the night’s festivities - you will get a behind-the-scenes look at how the Danes set up for a fun and memorable event.

In addition to our monthly business meeting and any last-minute discussion of Christmas Party preparations, we make a traditional Danish paper craft for the upcoming holidays. This year we will be doing the very traditional woven julejherter, or paper Christmas hearts. Patterns and paper will be provided, but if you can please bring a sharp pair of scissors and a pencil.

Julehjerter come in many variations, some are simple with three large woven meshes and no secondary design, others have not only the traditional heart shape but also an embedded cut design within the heart. Our own Marie Jost is an expert at this craft - this is a great opportunity to take your paper craft game to the next level and learn how to do an embedded Christmas tree design.

This meeting is our last in-person meeting for winter season - the January and February meetings will be online Zoom meetings so folks don’t have to drive at night in the winter weather and so our Danish diaspora can join from other towns and cities.

At our November meeting we will play a fun game of bingo, called with Danish letters and numbers! Cheat sheets available!

The top prize will be a frozen duck to prepare for your dinner for Mortensaften (St. Martin’s Day eve, on the 10th of November). Serving duck or goose as dinner with potatoes, gravy, and red cabbage is a venerable Danish tradition on the night before St. Martin’s Day.

If you would like to learn the backstory as to why a duck or goose for dinner is associated with St. Martin, then please join us for a brief reading of St. Martin’s story.

Hear all about LCDS members , the Hartvigsons, grand adventure in Norway this past summer !

If you haven’t been able to travel to any of the Nordic countries yet, then this is a great opportunity to get inspired to think about your own adventure.

Our 2025 Danish Princesses have been invited to share with us informally about the experience of representing the Danes this past year as members of the Astoria Scandinavian Midsummer Festival court.

Support our youth by coming to listen to their experiences with public speaking and being ambassadors for Nordic culture in our community. And if you know of young girls, young boys, or young women who are interested in becoming part of the Court, please bring them along to meet the Court members!

Booth set up at the Clatsop County Fairgrounds begins at 6:30 pm. We will be setting up the booth structure , kitchen and electrical system. We need some strong folks who can help carry and lift things into place, and some who know how to use hand-tools to assist with setting up the physical structure for the booth itself.

We will plan for our Danish booth at festival!

This includes coordination of food booth set up, transportation of the food to the fairgrounds, the health inspection of the booth area prior to opening, organization and staffing of volunteer shifts, and booth take down after Festival is over.

Lots of hands make light work, so please come to the June meeting to see how you can help out.

Learn how to prepare traditional Danish frikadeller and aebleskiver that we will have for sale in our booth at the Midsummer festival. These are some of the most popular dishes at Festival, and customers come from all over Washington and Oregon to sample our wares.

We will gather at 1 pm at the North Coast Food Web at 1152 Marine Drive in Astoria . This is a new location, it’s the old Sears building. The schedules for the booth at festival will be available. Sign up early to get your preferred shift and be able to work with family members and friends!

Snacks and beverages will be provided to help keep our cooks and assistants fueled up throughout the afternoon.

This is a great social occasion as well - catch up with friends and family while getting in the mood for the big summer celebration.

Join us for our annual Fastelavn Celebration! Festivities begin at 6:30 pm at St Mary, Star of the Sea Auditorium. Games, fun and prizes for kids and adults. Costumes are encouraged but not required. Finger foods will be served at intermission, bring a snack to share!

Denmark is consistently rated as one of the happiest countries on Earth. One might wonder - how it that even possible in a place that experiences such long, dark, and cold winters?

Our member Jen Zamon will give a presentation on the Danish public welfare system and its role in supporting that level of happiness and overall wellness - how it works, how it differs from those found in other countries, and, most importantly, why it works well.

We invite you to come learn something about this important part of Danish culture, and to offer your perspectives on how this compares to American culture.

ZOOM MEETING INFORMATION:

• Direct Web Link (click here)

• Meeting ID: 897 8962 1552

• Passcode: 175534

Danish Society members Barb and Ove Rasmussen will share about Danish birthday traditions.

Birthday celebrations in Denmark have a protocol of customs and expectations, some that may be familiar to Americans, others that may be surprising but delightful. What about gifts? When do guests stand up? How long does the party last?

The Rasmussens will share a few highlights from their recent and past experiences. Share your own as well. And be ready to sing a (translated) typical Danish birthday party song! You are also welcome to have a glass of a favorite beverage—juice, water, or . . . to skål with!

Here is the ZOOM meeting information:

• Direct Web Link (click here)

• Meeting ID: 897 8962 1552

• Meeting Passcode: 175534

Join us for our annual Jul Parti (Christmas Party) at the Star of the Sea Auditorium.

This is one of the most wonderful events the Danes host. It is completely family-friendly - everyone from infants to centenarians is welcome. Singles who don’t have family locally and families with multiple generations in the area come to join in the fun. We host a potluck so everyone is asked to bring a dish to share, with the Society also providing a core menu of traditional Danish Christmas foods like roast pork, red cabbage, frikadeller (Danish pork meatballs), and risalamande (Danish rice pudding). We have music, singing, and dancing around the Christmas tree, plus we expect a visit from Father Christmas himself!

Our venue is accessible for those with mobility issues - we will have a flat area for unloading right near the entrance doors, so folks can quickly get into the venue if the weather is bad. There is ramp access to the bathrooms and the stage (for our musicians!), and the hall floor is wheelchair-friendly.

Be part of this venerable Astoria and Danish tradition, and join in the joyful celebration of the Christmas Season. Glaedelig Jul to all!

PLEASE NOTE - this year we are starting our festivities a bit earlier in the day. Social hour begins at 5 pm, with dinner being served approximately 5:30 pm.

Many hands come together to decorate the hall, set up the dinner tables, prepare the place settings, and trim the Christmas tree with traditional Danish ornaments.

Please join us at the Auditorium the morning of the Jul Parti to ensure everything is in order for our guests and for Father Christmas. If you feel like you need a bit of holiday cheer in the dark winter months, there is no better way to get in the mood than putting up holiday decorations with friends and neighbors.

We usually finish up planning for our annual Jul Parti (Christmas Party) and then take time to make one of several traditional Danish Christmas decoration such as jul hjerte (woven paper hearts), kræmmerhuset (paper horns), or Danish paper stars.

This time we will learn to make beautiful Danish Stars. This traditional Danish Christmas decoration is lovely for decorating the tree or sprinkling amongst greenery !

Learn to say some numbers in Danish to play a fun game. The top prize will be a duck to be used for a proper Danish feast on St Martin’s Day! We will briefly share the story of St. Martin and then the gloves come off as the Bingo competition begins.

As always, there will be some nice refreshments to keep up energy for the games.

Don’t be afraid to try, even if you have never attempted to speak or listen to Danish before.