Why Fastelavn is Denmark’s Best Secret Holiday!

Remember when I said that the Danes just don’t “get” Halloween? Well, they make up for it a bit with Fastelavn, which is a holiday that happens normally in February the weekend before Ash Wednesday. Fastelavn has the word “fast” in it, because it was the party before the fast would begin.

You know, when Catholics give up meat on Fridays?! That fast. Not like racecar fast.

What do the Danes think about Halloween? Find out here: Danes celebrate Halloween! 

In olden days, this holiday was mostly for adults who wanted to cast away back luck, but nowadays, it is a reason for kids to dress up and have fun.

Denmark’s Holiday of Fastelavn is not Halloween!!

Don’t get me wrong, Fastelavn is NO Halloween, but it is nice that there is a holiday that requires dressing up and getting candy. That’s what truly makes childhood more memorable, a sugar-filled day when you can pretend to be someone else. Maybe it should go back to being an adult holiday. Lord knows I need an excuse to sit in my wedding dress while inducing my own sugar coma.

The hype of Fastelavn isn’t as large as Halloween is, but maybe it is because Denmark doesn’t have candy to sell like those American companies. We all know that they are the ones to cause the hype for Halloween, but we don’t care. Bring it on! Still, Fastelavn is fun and a great part of all that is Denmark and Danish culture.

Learn how to have an American Halloween in Denmark with this post!

You just won’t find your local grocery store taken over by every Fastelavn decoration imaginable. I don’t even think they have many. You will see lots of ads for costumes, since this is the only time when it is logical to buy them for children in Denmark. Schools, however, celebrate it, which is really what is important. I guess the stores having row upon row of Fastelavn “things” would just make it nice for the adults who don’t get to go to school. At least, most of them don’t. I’m a teacher, so I get the best of both worlds. 🙂

Background Info on Fastelavn

So…what exactly is Fastelavn? Well, as I mentioned before, it was a time before lent when people would feast before the fast. In the US, we call this Mardi Gras, which is the time when you bring Vegas home, so to speak. It is definitely an adult holiday of partying. Though there may be some countries that make it for everyone, like the Karneval in Germany, it is usually celebrated full-heartedly in New Orleans where you drink an obscene amount of alcohol and then feel the need to flash strangers for a cheap, plastic necklace. I’m not speaking from experience or anything, but much like everyone else, I’ve seen a lot of TV.

Fastelavnsboller

Speaking specifically of the feast for Fastelavn in the olden days, Danes would stuff themselves silly on the three days leading up to Ash Wednesday with things like pork (Not a surprise to anyone who has ever eaten Danish food.) and Fastelavn buns. I don’t know if people still overdo it with pork on the Sunday and Monday before Ash Wednesday, since the main ingredient in any Danish meal is pork, but I haven’t heard of any pork-specific foods for this occasion.

Do you have a sweet tooth? Learn more about how to make the Danish Strawberry Layer Cake!!

The one thing that is a major must-have is the “boller” or bun. This is more or less a doughnut, but a very, very good doughnut. There are also different varieties of boller. I have only had one type so far, which seems to be the most popular, but I am willing to be a judge in a Fastelavnsboller -eating contest, because I have finally found some Danish food that I like. Bring on the heart attack! I love myself some boller. The one that I have had is like a Bavarian cream-filled donut with a sugar icing on top, which has to be in my top 5 of donuts. I have seen others with jelly inside as well. but I prefer the cream filling! 🙂

Fastelavn Activities

Besides dressing up in costumes, one of the main events for the Fastelavn is the Slå katten af tønden, which plainly means, “hitting a barrel that has a cat inside”.  PETA would be all over this in the US, but to avoid any panties getting in a bunch, there are no real cats in the barrel these days. Instead, you will find candy and confetti in the barrels. Originally the “killing of the cat” was a way of getting rid of bad luck, since the black cat was a symbol of bad luck.

That seems to be a common belief in a lot of cultures, but I don’t think I’d want to beat one to death. To me, that doesn’t make me feel that my luck is about to get better.  I mean…come on! Does the barrel really make it any better? That’s just weird! Dark! We can all agree, I’m sure, that the replacement of candy was a good choice.

The barrel is intentionally made so that children could break it, and it is usually hung up somewhere by a string. It is more-or-less a form of the piñata, which every American knows about. (Side note: I also read somewhere that the “beating” was symbolic to the “beatings” parents would give children in order to remind them of Christ’s sacrifice. That doesn’t seem all too logical, since these beatings end with candy. Who knows!) 

Learn about more Fastelavnsdekorationer / Fastelavn decorations in this video!

Fastelavn Song

There is also a Fastelavn song that all children (and Danish adults) know called, “Fastelavn er mit navn”. It goes like this.

Fastelavn er mit navn,boller vil jeg have.Hvis jeg ingen boller får,
så laver jeg ballade.Boller op, boller ned
boller i min mave.
Hvis jeg ingen boller får,
så laver jeg ballade.

Roughly translated it says, “Fastelavn is my name; I would like donuts. If I don’t get donuts, I will do tricks. Donuts up, donuts down; donuts in my belly. If I don’t get donuts, I will do tricks”. These types of “tricks” are similar to the tricks in trick-or-treat. I guess that is another similarity to Halloween. If you don’t give us treats, we will trick you. It is a universal law of children in both Denmark and the USA, total world domination in the name of candy. How nice to have this in common! 😉

Would you like to learn another song? Check out this video on the Danish Birthday Song!

I was lucky to spend my first Fastelavn celebrating all weekend long. First on Friday, my school celebrated it by taking part in the barrel beating, song, crafts and boller eating.  Not to mention, the children and teachers dressed up. It felt like Halloween, but it was much more fun in a way, because it was completely new to me, and of course, the BOLLER, which were actually made by my students!!!

Town Fastelavn Event

Then on Saturday, my Danish town had a small event in the city center where the children could have a go at the barrel beating and get some bollers and juice. Because they wanted to make it fair, they had three different barrels for the different size children. The smaller children had a cardboard barrel, while the bigger kids had two separate wooden barrels: one for middle-sized kids and one for bigger kids.

It didn’t last more than an hour really, but it was nice to have something to do and to give my kids the chance to dress up outside of our house. Also, they acknowledged the child who was the one to knock all the candy out of the barrel (Queen of the Barrel) and the child to knock the last piece of the barrel down (King of the Barrel). In the case of my town, it seemed that a crown and applause were the prizes. Heck! That’s not bad, considering they already got candy, donuts and juice.

Stop begging, Batman! You’re good!

Neighborhood Fastelavn Party

On Sunday late morning, my neighborhood had a small event to celebrate the day, which was just perfect. It was a nice way to socialize with the neighbors in a fun, family-friendly setting. The last time we were all out in the street, talking to each other was midnight on New Years Eve, but my kids were asleep at that point. 

I thought this was a fun way for me as an American to connect to the Danes and feel a bit more accepted into my new homeland/town. We started by going to one house for the barrel beating, where my son was crowned for breaking the barrel. Inside were little bags of candy and bags of tangerines.

Fastelavn Food and Time to Socialize

Afterwards, we all went to another neighbor’s house to have coffee and a bit to eat. It was very nice that so many neighbors came out for the event. We had “round pieces”, which are rolls that you can top with jam, cheese and/or meat. We had alcohol on the table to toast each other, and we also had Fastelavn boller! YUM!!! Even now as I type this, I am having a hard time keeping my hands still and getting my fingers to function from the mixture of sugar and alcohol, and it is just lunch time! Holy moly! It is at times like these that I wish my Danish was better than it is.

What do people eat in Denmark? Learn more in this video: Traditional Danish Food!

I still have a hard time understanding what people say, especially older people with this “jysk” (middle of Denmark) dialect. It would have been nice to socialize more, but what are you going to do? When the implantable chip is made for understanding languages, I’ll be the first to sign up, but until then, I will just be the awkward foreigner in the room, who smiles when others talk to me and shake my head signifying that I have no idea what they hell people are saying.

I wonder if my lack of Danish is equivalent to the “elephant in the room”, that one thing that everyone is aware of, but no one talks about. 🙂 Hahaha!

Rasleturen / Trick-or-Treat

Then in the early evening, the kids went door to door and “trick or treated”. Instead of saying, “trick-or-treat” when someone answered the door, the boys had to sing the Fastelavn song. This was so cute! We had been practicing it for a few days, since this was their first experience with the holiday. They needed to learn the song for the first time. Luckily, they had been also singing it in school/daycare. 

It was misting when we went out around 5pm, and though we were told about the “trick-or-treating” by a neighbor, we were greeted with a lot of surprised people. We felt really bad that no one seemed to know that we were coming. One house gave out chocolate balls, which is like a chocolate-covered marshmallow, but all the other houses just gave my kids money, since they weren’t prepared for us.

I hear that this is actually quite normal, but we felt bad taking their money. It doesn’t seem logical to buy candy if you don’t normally have the need, since I always had tons of leftover candy in the US on Halloween, especially if it rained. I guess we didn’t know what to expect with this new holiday either. 

Dang!! I would have supplied the houses with candy beforehand, since it appeared that only my two kids were going out and knocking on doors. The experience and the action are much more fun than the reward, or so says the mom. Ask my kids, and I’m sure you might get a different story. hahaha! What do they know? Little beggars! 🙂

I’m not sure if other neighborhoods or towns in Denmark do anything for Fastelavn, but I would love to hear about it if they do. If you are a reader from Denmark, please leave a comment telling me about your experiences and where you live. This is a holiday that most (almost all) Americans don’t know anything about, and I’m sure it is celebrated differently depending on town and region.

Fastelavn at School

To end all things Fastelavn, my boys both had parties at their schools where they ate boller and hit the barrels. They got to dress up and have a party with the other kids in their class. Since my older son goes to a school with only two kindergarten classes, they celebrated together. They had fun! I’m glad for that, since they don’t have many parties in the schools here.

Learn the difference between a Danish and an International School in this post!

They may do lots of different things, but parties here aren’t like what I was used to in the US. I suppose that is also dependent upon where you go to school. They just got back from a week of vacation, which occurred during the time of Valentine’s Day. VD isn’t celebrated here. AT. ALL. It is a weird concept to grasp. That was always a great memory for me, making a box to put the Valentines.

I loved that kind of stuff. You won’t see anything like that here. At least, we have Fastelavn…and BOLLERS!!! 🙂

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