Danish TV Christmas calendars: Folklore, myth and cultural history

This article aims at characterizing the Danish Christmas calendar as a TV institution and a meeting place for the traditions of the almanac, folklore and the history of culture. Against the background of a brief outline of the history of Danish Christmas calendars, the article explores ways in which this traditional genre has succeeded in renewing itself. The so-called Pyrus series, TV 2's Christmas calendars during the mid-1990s, exhibited folklore, myth and cultural history in a combination of entertainment and information. They were succeeded by calendars such as Jul i Valhal/'Christmas in Valhalla' (2005), Absalons hemmelighed/'The Secret of Absalon' (2006), Mikkel og guldkortet/'Mikkel and the Golden Card' (2008) and Pagten/'The Covenant' (2009). Some of these added cultural criticism to the repertoire of the genre.