Danish Jul

I’m eyeing up the freshly felled Christmas tree that’s being held upright by a piece of string tied around its middle - the other end is nailed to the wall. That’s not what’s caught my eye though; rather the twenty candles hanging from its branches. I come from a place where Health and Safely laws would demand this whole set up be dismantled immediately.
To add to the fun, I’m handed my third gløgg - a mulled wine so potent I’m sure it’s as flammable as the tree. It’s my first Danish Jul, which is effectively Christmas but it lasts longer.
Today is Christmas eve, and my hosts are introducing me to a Danish tradition: risengrød. Properly made rice pudding, with thick cream and a muddy landslide of brown sugar, cinnamon and hot butter glazing the top. There’s a vat of it keeping warm on the stove, next to an even bigger vat of gløgg. Both will last through the rest of Christmas, I’m told.
There’s a good reason for this: in times of hardship, Danes of old would eat so much of the stuff that no one could manage much of the more expensive Christmas delicacies on offer the following day. And there’s a simple trick to ensure full bellies: a single whole almond is hidden amongst a thousand chopped almonds, some with only a tantalizingly small corner carefully snipped off. You find the whole almond: you win - what, I don’t know yet.
But we’re all eating slowly, utilizing our tongues to find the winning nut. I’ve never eaten like this: delicately, deliberately. There is no rushing risengrød: this stodgy, cream-topped heaven is to be savoured. In this way the eating of the pudding goes on all night, through more glasses of gløgg, through the rattling of well wrapped Christmas presents, through the traditional watching of Dinner for One - a British comedy nearly forgotten in its homeland, but a source of Yuletide fascination through most of northern Europe.
No one’s going to stop eating until a winner is declared. So I am genuinely full to bursting when - with a howl of delight - the youngest daughter of this family steeped in Danish tradition proceeds to rummage around her mouth with an index finger, eventually producing an entirely intact almond.
She is presented with cries of delight from her mother - and taunting grunts of woeful disappointment from everyone else - then chocolates, which she happily shares around. The gløgg is topped up and Christmas has truly begun. Outside it’s snowing and inside, I’m full of festive delight, and a hell of a lot of rice pudding.