Explore the long history of Christmas in Denmark

The new exhibition The Roots of Christmas takes you through a range of universes. The exhibition runs until 5 January 2025.

The exhibition The Roots of Christmas is a total experience taking you into different Christmas universes. In the first you find yourself in a gigantic Advent calendar where the windows of the National Museum have been transformed into 24 calendar doors. Behind the doors are old Christmas decorations that reveal surprising stories about Christmas past. In the next universe you arrive at a dark Danish farmyard on the night of Christmas. You are actually not meant to be out here, because the dark forces of nature are even more powerful at Christmas. Next stop is a forest a thousand years ago, where Vikings have just killed a pig as an offering to the gods. As you go through the exhibition you discover that Christmas is an age-old ritual full of surprises.

The traditional Danish tale Peter’s Christmas has been a source of Christmas nostalgia since the 1800s, but Christmas has much deeper roots in Christianity and the pagan winter celebration Jól. Christmas was once a seasonal ritual connecting people, nature and the gods. It marked the transition to a new year and brought prosperity and fertility.

Christmas Galore at the National Museum

Christmas in the Victorian Home where you can see how Denmark’s upper middle class celebrated Christmas at the end of the 1800s.
Christmas Eve at the Museum, 5 & 12 December from 18.00-21.00.
See our new exhibition The Roots of Christmas, buy Christmas gifts in the peace and quiet of the museum shop, and visit the finest Christmas apartment of the 1800s with a guided tour of the museum’s Victorian Home. Not to mention enjoying Denmark’s traditional Christmas rice pudding, ‘æbleskiver’ batter balls and Christmas drinks.
A special range of historical Christmas decorations in the museum shop
A Christmas menu at Restaurant Smör.
Christmas weekend workshops where you can make your own Christmas decorations – pinecone elves, elf staircases and ballerinas. You can also crochet small pigs.