A Danish Xmas papercraft tradition
Oct 30, 2014 10:07:28 GMT -9
squirmydad, Vermin King, and 1 more like this
Post by Cardstock Dane on Oct 30, 2014 10:07:28 GMT -9
Thought I'd share this with you...
Everybody knows Santa's elves. In my part of the world, we have elves too, but they are of a different nature than the elves you normally see at Santa's workshop. Here in Denmark and the rest of the Nordics, we have the 'nisse' (in Swedish: 'Tomte'), which are distant relatives to Leprechauns, and who stems from folk superstition and pre-Christian mythology. The Nisse can be described as a household spirit, and every household would have one. It was important to keep the nisse happy, because it was a tempered spirit with magical properties, who could make life difficult to he or she, who didn't treat it kindly. Thus, people would put a tray of porridge and a mug of beer out for the Nisse, to ensure that he ie. wouldn't curse the cows, or worse, the harvest.
In modern times, the Nisse has become a Christmas tradition (Julenisse), and they only appear in the month of December. Now, just like in any other country that celebrates Christmas, we do christmas decorations too - and of course the Nisse plays an important part in this. Every year, any women's magazine with self esteem has a cardstock inlay with "kravlenisser" (Lit.: 'crawling elves') to decorate the home with, along with all the other Christmas decoration stuff. And some of these are now old enough to be in the public domain, so I though I'd share a some of these with you guys.
www.sparet-er-tjent.dk/2010/11/kravlenisser.html
www.duda.dk/Grundangel/Kristendom/Jul/juleklip/kravlenisser/kravlenisser.html
www.denglemteskuffe.dk/Samling%20dgs%20sider/Kravlenisse%20samling/samling%20Kravlenisser%20Ark.html
If you want to find more, just search for "kravlenisser".
Another tradition at Christmas in the very same womens magazines, is the Christmas village, which is basically an old fashioned village with snow on the roofs. It's an expression of Christmas nostalgia (and how everything was better in the old days), and it comes as a cardstock inlay in said magazines, just like the 'kravlenisser'. They are harder to find on the internet, but a good example can be seen at this page (the last linked photo - 'Hendes Verden' - pdf with scan of a full village kit).
hjbak.dk/klippeark/klippeark.html
Hope some of you will have a bit of fun with these.
Everybody knows Santa's elves. In my part of the world, we have elves too, but they are of a different nature than the elves you normally see at Santa's workshop. Here in Denmark and the rest of the Nordics, we have the 'nisse' (in Swedish: 'Tomte'), which are distant relatives to Leprechauns, and who stems from folk superstition and pre-Christian mythology. The Nisse can be described as a household spirit, and every household would have one. It was important to keep the nisse happy, because it was a tempered spirit with magical properties, who could make life difficult to he or she, who didn't treat it kindly. Thus, people would put a tray of porridge and a mug of beer out for the Nisse, to ensure that he ie. wouldn't curse the cows, or worse, the harvest.
In modern times, the Nisse has become a Christmas tradition (Julenisse), and they only appear in the month of December. Now, just like in any other country that celebrates Christmas, we do christmas decorations too - and of course the Nisse plays an important part in this. Every year, any women's magazine with self esteem has a cardstock inlay with "kravlenisser" (Lit.: 'crawling elves') to decorate the home with, along with all the other Christmas decoration stuff. And some of these are now old enough to be in the public domain, so I though I'd share a some of these with you guys.
www.sparet-er-tjent.dk/2010/11/kravlenisser.html
www.duda.dk/Grundangel/Kristendom/Jul/juleklip/kravlenisser/kravlenisser.html
www.denglemteskuffe.dk/Samling%20dgs%20sider/Kravlenisse%20samling/samling%20Kravlenisser%20Ark.html
If you want to find more, just search for "kravlenisser".
Another tradition at Christmas in the very same womens magazines, is the Christmas village, which is basically an old fashioned village with snow on the roofs. It's an expression of Christmas nostalgia (and how everything was better in the old days), and it comes as a cardstock inlay in said magazines, just like the 'kravlenisser'. They are harder to find on the internet, but a good example can be seen at this page (the last linked photo - 'Hendes Verden' - pdf with scan of a full village kit).
hjbak.dk/klippeark/klippeark.html
Hope some of you will have a bit of fun with these.