12 December 2011

Our Christmas Bicycle

The Copenhagenize / Cycle Chic Christmas Bicycle
So, it's the holiday season. In Danish, christmas is 'jul'. Christmas time is 'juletid', which the English language knows as Yuletide. It was orginally a winter festival celebrated from the end of December to the beginning of January.

Not being a fan of monotheistic religious symbols in my home, you'd think that yuletide was tricky to get around when you have kids. Danish tradition, however, has heaps of options. Elves and fairies are primary figures in December. My kids have four elves who show up on December 1st each year and hang out until the 24th, placing a present a day in their stockings and - as a rule - doing naughty things. Every morning the kids look forward to seeing what they got up to during the night. They'll raid the fridge and the cookie jar, turn the milk green, hide stuff in the kids' shoes, and so on.

Some years we'll get a tree, or we'll decorate in other ways. This year, however, we realised that that bicycle standing in the living room might just be perfect for decorating. If yuletide is about symbolism, surely the bicycle is a powerful symbol for all that is good for our cities and societies. If not one of the most powerful symbols. So, the beautiful, old Husqvarna bicycle from 1947 got a makeover.
The Copenhagenize / Cycle Chic Christmas Bicycle
Off we went. The kids decorated the Yuletide Bicycle this weekend. Adding evergreen branches, small elves, bits and pieces from the decoration box and they cut out hearts to put on the bicycle. The heart is another primary, and secular, symbol of christmas in Denmark, and it goes hand in hand with the bicycle. We actually love the heart so much, we put it on our Danish coins.

The Copenhagenize / Cycle Chic Christmas Bicycle The Copenhagenize / Cycle Chic Christmas Bicycle
The kids did their own funky thang and went crazy decorating the bicycle.
The Copenhagenize / Cycle Chic Christmas Bicycle The Copenhagenize / Cycle Chic Christmas Bicycle

The Copenhagenize / Cycle Chic Christmas Bicycle The Copenhagenize / Cycle Chic Christmas Bicycle
Now all we need are presents to put under. Coming soon.
The Copenhagenize / Cycle Chic Christmas Bicycle

11 comments:

kjsutcliffe said...

excellent! What a brilliant way to celebrate yule!

my hyggelig said...

I LOVE this idea!! Some years we get trees, and some years I also decorate my bicycle. Thank you for sharing! Could your own holiday tv special be far away? ☺

alex said...

cute. shaking up the status quo.

'Xander Labayen said...

We love decorating bicycles for Christmas, we are going to hang one on our front porch!

Anonymous said...

Amazing creativity!

Mondale said...

Fantastic! We have a tree loaded down with a fantasmagorical mixture of ornaments. I love idea about the elves messing things up.

Kurt said...

Great idea!

Anonymous said...

This is the cutest thing I've ever seen!

Anonymous said...

Very cute idea!

Guess that explains why Santa sometimes flies in on a cargo bike drawn by reindeer.

leftbanker said...

This is truly among your most outstanding ideas. I wish Santa would come to Valencia and drop a load of VERY heavy toys on top of the folks at city hall who are waging a war against cyclists.

purple_rain said...

This is probably THE awesomest thing I have ever seen!! :D