After three years of being unable to come together for Fastelavn, we are finally back to an in-person gathering! Please consider helping us set up for the celebration between 11 am and 12 pm on Saturday morning 10 February 2024.

Join us for this Danish version of Mardis Gras, complete with a costume contest for everyone, games for kids such as ring-riding and barrel-bashing, and dancing. Sweet cardamon rolls called boller and hot chocolate will be served for snacks.

We are meeting at our new event location, which has level access to the hall and wheel-chair accessible restrooms:

Date: Saturday 10 February 2024

Time: 6 pm to 9 pm ish

Location: St. Mary, Star of the Sea Auditorium (and the corner of 14th and Grand), Astoria, Oregon

Looking for a very simple volunteer opportunity? Help us set up for the Fastelavn Parti!

We haven’t been able to gather for Fastelavn for 3 years, and we will be in a different location from past celebrations. You are just the kind of helpful person we need to figure out how to best set up the room for tables and games! This is a very low-key set up and a great way to meet new friends.

Our February Meeting will be held on Zoom, and Marie Yost is preparing a game of Danish Trivia for the evening after we finish our business portion of the meeting. Join us to test your knowledge of Danish culture and history and earn the opportunity to win fun prizes. Brush up on your current events in Denmark and you might just get a leg up!

Zoom Meeting ID: 897 8962 1552

Zoom password for this meeting: 175534

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

In the dead of winter, we hold two virtual meetings so folks who are out of town or don’t want to travel in the dark with possible hazardous weather can join us.

January will be our first virtual meeting. Our own member Doreen Simonsen will lead a program discussing our families’ immigrant stories - where they came from in Denmark, and how and when they made their way to the Lower Columbia region…

The holidays are the perfect time for gathering with family and telling families stories, so take advantage of that and strike up some conversations with your relatives about your Danish heritage. And if you don’t have Danish heritage in your family, just come to learn more about your friends and neighbours!

Here is the Zoom Link to get to the meeting.

*** Please note - NEW LOCATION THIS YEAR! ***

Every year we gather together for a wonderful, family-oriented pot-luck dinner, music, singing, story-time, and dancing to prepare for the Christmas holiday season. Please join us to be with old friends and new.

The Danish Society provides some traditional holiday foods - medisterpølse (a pork and onion sausage), frikadeller (Danish pork meatballs), flæskesteg (roast pork loin) mashed potatoes, rødkål (red cabbage), coffee, non-alcoholic punch, and risalamande (Danish rice pudding) - and we ask families bring their own special recipes and treats to share.

In the past we’ve received a visit from Santa Claus, too, so let’s keep our fingers crossed Santa will come to visit again!

Access is available from the ground floor with no stairs, and there are ADA-friendly restrooms that are ramp-accessible. We ask that folks avoid parking in the “drop-off” zone at the front entrance, so party-goers who need a little extra assistance with mobility have plenty of room to maneuver.

All good parties require decorations and setting tables for guests, and our annual Jul Parti (Christmas Party) is no different.

Please consider helping out by showing up at the Auditorium the morning before our party. We decorate the hall and the Christmas tree, set up the dining tables and buffet, and generally get things looking festive. Because we are in a new venue for this year’s party, we’ll be thinking about how best to do things as we do, so good ideas will be welcome for set up.

We could use some strong backs to help move tables and chairs into place. The more, the merrier!

Contact us by email if you have any questions: lowercolumbiadanes@gmail.com

Traditionally we make some type of traditional Christmas craft at our December meeting, in addition to any final preparations for our annual jul parti.

This year we will be making kræmmerhuse Christmas ornaments. These traditional crafts are colourful paper baskets, hung on a tree, and filled with goodies like nuts, chocolates, or little pebernødder (one of several traditional holiday cookies).

Please bring pencil and a pair of scissors - everything else will be provided.

Our Society typically honors the Danish tradition of Mortensaften by holding games of Danish bingo after our November business meeting, with the grand prize being a frozen duck!

If you want to know more about WHY the duck is a big deal, then stay tuned, or better yet, come to our November meeting and find out for yourself. You may just go home with a special treat to cook for dinner!

While visiting Ove’s family in Denmark, Barbara and Ove Rasmussen spent several months living during the winter of 2022-2023. This included being there for Jul. They are going to be sharing a slideshow with us and telling us stories about their time there - apparently it was so enjoyable they weren’t really sure they were coming back to us!!!

They will also supplement their program with a Syd Fyn treat of brunsvikager.

Please join us as they share stories about their wonderful time in Denmark. We hope it will inspire you to want to make a trip.

It is customary for us to have a visit from the young people who are members of the Scandinavian Midsummer Festival Court, where each Nordic society has Junior and Senior Princesses, and a Crownbearer for all of the Princesses, who act as ambassadors for the Festival and their respective lodges with a variety of community groups.

They will share their experiences being on the court with us and afterwards are welcome to join us for light snacks and informal conversation.

To raise awareness of Nordic heritage and culture in Astoria, and to shamelessly advertise our own most awesome Danish Booth at the upcoming Astoria Scandinavian Midsummer Festival, we will be participating in the 4th Annual Stationary Optog. “Optog” means “parade” in Danish, but in this case we flip the script on a traditional parade - instead of us parading in the streets and spectators lining the sidewalk as we go by, we stand on the sidewalk and the spectators in cars drive by us on the street.

Danish Society members will hold and wave Danish flags and be encouraged to show their Danish pride in by wearing Danish-themed clothing or costumes. Members of all the other Nordic Lodgest from the Lower Columbia area will also participate - Finns, Norwegians, Swedes, and Icelanders. Dress for whatever weather Astoria chooses to have that weekend!!!

Assemble between 16th and 17th Streets on Marine Drive (in front of the Columbia River Maritime Museum).

PARKING: please park somewhere above Commercial or Duane Streets on the side roads; we are asking people to avoid parking in the Museum parking lot, because we’d like to ensure the Museum has parking for its own visitors and continues to support the Optog in the future.

We’ll be going over final Festival preparations at this meeting - and one of them is practicing cooking aebleskiver, the delicious Danish “donut holes” that are one of the most popular items at Festival.

The batter for making these will be prepared ahead of time, but if you have an aebleskiver pan (cast iron or electric) that you would like to try out, then feel free to bring it to the meeting. We will learn the techniques for greasing the pan, pouring the batter, and turning the individual aebleskiver with wooden picks so they come out as perfectly golden-brown spheres. Of course, we will have to taste-test our creations - plain, with powdered sugar, or jam. The dough is light and slightly sweet, but resembling the mouthfeel of a slightly chewy pancake more than that of a donut.

If you are interested in finding a way to help with the Danish Food Booth this is a great time to introduce yourself and learn more. Commitments are as modest as 2 hours for a shift or assisting with set-up or break-down of the booth.

Instead of holding a regular May meeting, we hold this late-May event to begin preparations for Festival and encourage everyone to come out for part or all of the day.

Festival 2023 is on its way, so we are going to be busy preparing both the aebleskiver dry mix for our very popular Danish “spherical miracles” (puffy fried batter) and frikadeller (Danish meat balls).

We do need helpers for all or part of the day; it’s a fun way to socialize while getting some really important things prepared for Festival. We mix the dry ingredients for the aebleskiver, as well as mix, form, and cook the frikadeller. If you don’t like playing with food, then dishwashing duty is also available!

Snacks and beverages will be provided to keep the cooks and cooks’ helpers fueled up throughout the day.

Again, we respect everyone’s wishes to remain safe and healthy, so in addition to food-service protocols that we always follow when preparing the food (gloves, hairnets/hats, frequent hand washing between tasks, physically separate break room), masks will be available for those who wish to have them.

Support our community’s youth by joining us for the annual visit of the Midsummer Festival Court. Senior princesses, junior princesses, and the crown-bearer will all be here to tell us about their Nordic heritage. This visit is the first of many appearances the Court makes in the coming year, where young people practice public speaking and community service on behalf of the Astoria Midsummer Scandinavian Festival.

After the Court’s visit, we will all share a generous table of home-made baked goods and snack items as well as coffee and punch.

If you are bringing snacks and will be helping with set-up in the basement meeting room, then please arrive about 6:30 pm so we can have things ready for the Court and their guests.

Our member Berit Madsen was able to visit Norway last fall, so she will be doing a little presentation on her trip. Please join us for our regular business meeting, this presentation, and some light snacks.

OUR IN-PERSON 2023 PARTY HAS BEEN CANCELLED. Due to unforeseen circumstances which have made the venue unavailable to us, we will need to cancel our in-person celebration this year.

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Many cultures around the world celebrate before the beginning of Lent (which is four weeks of penance, prayer, and almsgiving before Easter) with special foods, games, and a carnival party - and Danes are no different.

Here in Astoria, we get together for a series of traditional children’s games (ring-riding, a piñata-like game called slå katten af tønden, translated as ‘hitting the cat out of the barrel’ even though nowadays no actual cats are involved), a costume contest, a dance contest, and traditional sweet buns calls fastelavnsboller. This is a family-friendly event - mark your calendars and please join us!

Date & time: Saturday 25 February 2023, 6 pm to 8:30 pm

Location: Seaport #7 Masonic Lodge, 1572 Franklin Street, Astoria, OR 97103

Some of our members were able to visit Denmark at Christmastime and for New Year’s Day, so they will be sharing with us their holiday experiences in Denmark. We will of course have our regular business meeting prior to the program - that usually lasts 10 minutes or so.

Join us to learn about what Christmas is like in modern-day Denmark

Zoom link: click here!

Meeting ID: 897 8962 1552

Passcode: 175534

We will have a VIRTUAL ZOOM MEETING for our January meeting.

To make things easier for folks right after then holidays, especially when our weather can be quite nasty on the coast, we will hold a virtual meeting for January.

January’s program will be a “social hour”, where folks can catch up with goings-on from the holidays including our very successful Jul Parti in December.

Here is the meeting information:

Time: Jan 5, 2023 7 pm to 8 pm Pacific Time

Zoom Meeting link: Click here

Meeting ID: 897 8962 1552

Passcode: 175534

In addition to Midsummer Festival, our December Jul Parti potluck dinner is one of the big highlights of the year.

Please join us to celebrate this season of joy and blessing - it will be especially meaningful because we haven’t been able to be together in person for this event since 2019!

The feast typically features medisterpolse (Danish pork sausage), frikadeller (lean pork meatballs), rødkål (red cabbage), and risalamande (Danish rice pudding), and we celebrate with music, story-telling, and dancing around the Christmas tree.

Stay tuned for updates, but please mark your calendar!

This is a family-friendly event. Something like this might attract the attention of a certain someone who travels with 9 reindeer….

We always have a Christmas craft of some sort to make traditional Danish decorations for the jul season.

Updates on what we will do coming soon - materials will be provided although folks are welcome to bring their own.

To celebrate Mortensaften (St. Martin’s Eve) which occurs on the 11th of November, after our regular business meeting on November 3rd we will hold our annual Danish Bingo. Come have fun learning Danish letters and numbers while playing Bingo for fun prizes.

You will also hear the story of why this evening traditionally involves a dinner of goose or duck.

Remember, you don’t have to be Danish or speak Danish to join us - you just need to be interested in Danish culture.

Fun events like our upcoming Jul Parti require planning and coordination ahead of time to ensure they take place for everyone to enjoy.

A smaller group of Danes meet every year in October to coordinate with all members so the party takes place without a hitch.

If you are interested in helping plan our first, in-person Jul Parti since 2019, then please contact us for more information and you would be welcome to join the Planning Committee.

• lowercolumbiadanes@gmail.com

• 503-325-2612

Tonight in addition to our normal business meeting and consumption of delicious refreshments, we will be sharing “Danish Trivia.” Members are encouraged to bring some interesting Danish trivia to share. it can be trivia about anything of interest to you - such as “What is the most common surname in Denmark?”

Join us for little bit of hygge as the days begin to shorten and we head into autumn.

Please note the time correction - we will meet at 6:30 pm.

It takes a village to help set up our Danish booth and the little mini-kitchen where we prepare some of the hands-down best-tasting, best-priced food at the Festival.

Today is when we do the final set-up for the booth kitchen - things need to be neat and tidy and ready to spring into action on Friday afternoon.

If you have a talent for organizing, cleaning, working in a kitchen or making things look their best, then we need your skills on Thursday evening!

Call 503-325-2612 or email lowercolumbiadanes@gmail.com to sign up.

Please note the time correction - we will meet at 6:30 pm

It takes a village to help set up our Danish booth and the little mini-kitchen where we prepare some of the hands-down best-tasting, best-priced food at the Festival.

We especially need folks who might have a bit of a talent for carpentry/building and electrical work to help us set up the booth framework and power pods needed to run the cooking and heating equipment.

Call 503-325-2612 or email us at lowercolumbiadanes@gmail.com to sign up.