A Scandinavian Christmas Cottage
November 24, 2011
First off, Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends! Hopefully you’re enjoying plenty of delicious food with family and friends and keeping cozy indoors somewhere lovely. Christmas is definitely in the air, don’t you think? There’s a chill in the wind and the mountains all have a good dusting of snow here in our corner of Canada. It’s not very often that we have a white Christmas but I’m really hoping that it will happen this year…I can only imagine how excited our kids would be! It also feels like the holiday frenzy is starting to take over the stores and I’m working very hard to resist the urge to buy, buy, buy! Does your heart start to pound a little faster at the sight of each overabundant stack of tempting shiny things? Mine does but not in a good way…it’s more of an anxious pounding! So I’m doing my best to ignore the strategically stacked gizmos beside every store teller and I’m determined to stick to my holiday tasks, focusing on meaningful and well-made gifts for everyone on my list. Fieldstone will be the perfect opportunity to shop from local vintage and handmade sellers and I am so very excited to see what they put together on December 3rd!
I came across this airy white Danish cottage on Lantiliv yesterday and think that it has to be the epitome of what a simple family Christmas truly should be! The cottage itself is a dream, with it’s raw wood floors and white walls and ceiling, but it’s the holiday traditions of the family that owns it that really make it such a special place…thank you Google Translate!
Owned by Mille and Christian Gyldenfeldt, this cottage on Denmark’s North coast of Zealand has become their family’s year-round weekend retreat from busy life in Copenhagen. The couple have two young children and Christmas is based far more around family traditions than expensive gifts. Decorations have been inherited from grandparents or found at vintage shops and flea markets, as have a number of other furniture and decor pieces from throughout the cozy haven…
Some Christmas traditions for the Gyldenfeldt family include tobogganing, wintry walks on the beach and decorating the tree, with plenty of Christmas carols, cakes and sweets enjoyed along the way. They enjoy dinner with extended family on Christmas Eve, followed by dancing around the tree and taking turns opening each person’s gift. Sounds just about perfect, doesn’t it?
“It’s very rare for us to buy something expensive. We know what we like and have the patience to wait until we can find it at a flea market or auction site on the net.There is no risk that it feels empty in the house – we are both convinced that “less is more”.” ~Christian Gyldenfeldt
Lantiliv. All photos by Frederikke Heiberg.
Hmmm, am I forgetting something? Is there a very important announcement that I was supposed to make today? Why, yes, there is! The winner of Chicago Spaces: Inspiring Interiors (chosen by the True Random Number Generator) is…..drumroll…..the lovely Rosa Pearson of Flutter Flutter!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS! That is too funny…she just Tweeted us last night, wondering how many times she could enter our draw but it was her original comment that was drawn as our random number! We love Rosa and it’s wonderful to give this book to someone we’ve already met several times! Rosa, we can’t wait to ship your amazing new book off to you, just in time for Christmas. Have a wonderful Thursday everybody!
