Denmark is a place that always seems to be on holiday. There was whatever happened around Christmas, then the kids got a week off school in February, then there was a week off for Easter and depending on where you live you may or may not get May 1st off as some kind of workers protest day.
Last Friday was another one of the these special days. St. Bededag to be exact. I have heard a few different explanations for this but basically what it boils down to is an old king taking all the saint's days and combining them into one big prayer day. (This means that they used to have even more holidays!) I'm told that his idea was to save money. It felt a little strange to be in this super materialistic part of the world and hear everyone talking about the upcoming holy day but true to Danish culture there was very little praying done.
There were, however, many fine picnics to be enjoyed and my household spent the afternoon by the sea at Charlottenlund. It was a pretty big shindig that was organized to celebrate the end of term for my roomate's school. They had the usual barbque but they also invited people from one of the local museums to teach us some traditional games. This museum is all about toys and games and it turns out that the really old ones that they are trying to save from extinction are what we now call cooperative games.
So the next time you play a cooperative game remember that you are saving Danish culture.
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