Christmas Candle

After our children grew up and went to college, we began to host exchange students attending a local community college.  Some stayed all year, and some only a few months.

During 2014 and 2015, the college had an agreement with a high school in Herning, Denmark where an entire class would come over to study in America for two months.  In 2015, Camilla came to stay with us.

Tall and blond, like most Danish girls I've met, she was very outgoing, not wasting her opportunity to see America.  Her mother worked at a Christmas store in Denmark, so Camilla brought us tradition Danish Christmas Candle.  It says, God Jul (Happy Christmas) in Danish and has numbers along the side.  As she explained, you were supposed to burn the candle each night until you get to the day, counting down until Christmas.  (As you can see, we weren't very consistent burning our candle.)

Camilla was only with us from October 2nd through December 2nd so she was not around for Christmas that year.  Since it was her favorite time of the year, we broke out the Christmas decorations and put up the tree right after Thanksgiving.  Camilla, Ai, and Beryl, our three students for the year, enjoyed opening up the Christmas decorations and putting them up on the tree.

When Gail and I actually travel to Europe together, we will have to stop by Herning and look up Camilla and Nadja.  Too bad the school decided to go to San Francisco in 2016.