This year Christmas in Tivoli is in its 23rd season, and the Gardens will be open to visitors on both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Tivoli will be open on 24 December from 11:00 – 16:00, with Nimb Brasserie and Nimb Terrasse open for the evening. On 31 December the entire Gardens will be open, so visitors can add a trip on the Roller Coaster to their New Year celebrations. It’s a good idea to book a table at one of our restaurants in advance if you are keen to eat dinner in Tivoli on New Year’s Eve.
Honey cake workshop
This year Tivoli introduces the Honey Cake Castle, located in the Tivoli Castle. In Tivoli’s cake workshop you can buy a honey cake heart and decorate it however you like – for example with the name of your beloved. Tivoli has also created its own mulled wine (gløgg), which will taste exotic and full of adventure – just like Tivoli. Drink it served hot on-site or take a bottle home for a treat later on.
The secret of Danish doughnuts
Mention mulled wine and the mind inevitably turns to Danish doughnuts (æbleskiver) – the spherical ‘pancakes’ that Danes love to eat at Christmas. You can buy excellent frozen Danish doughnuts, but it goes without saying that Tivoli offers a home-made version, baked on-site in an “æbleskive” pan and turned using a skewer and the special grip that you need for a beautifully round finished product. You’ll find mulled wine and Danish doughnuts at both food stalls and restaurants during Christmas in Tivoli – for example, in the Vaffelbageriet run by Benedikte Krætzmer and her husband, Knud. The business has been in the family since 1906, and Benedikte bakes around 25,000 Danish doughnuts in the Vaffelbageriet every Christmas.
Eat seasonal food or take it home
The stalls scattered around the gardens will be buzzing with a pleasant, busy atmosphere, as visitors buy Christmas decorations and treats, arts and crafts, stocking fillers and other gift ideas – and of course, food and drink. Tivoli’s roast pork sandwich has become an attraction that can almost stand in for a traditional Danish Christmas dish: roast pork with red cabbage.
Lighting and gunpowder
Christmas in Tivoli offers a traditional atmosphere with plenty of decorated Christmas trees and gorgeous, quirky decorations. The lighting, consisting of a million or so fairy lights hanging in atmospheric strings, is acclaimed worldwide. One exciting new element in 2016 will be three huge trees wrapped in fairy lights.
Between Christmas and New Year, it’s the sky above Tivoli that will light up each evening thanks to the fireworks festival, in which masses of fireworks are lit on the roof of the Tivoli Concert Hall. There is a special fireworks display on New Year's Eve.
The Nutcracker and Father Christmas
Returning to the topic of food, Christmas delicacies are also on the table inside the Tivoli Concert Hall. The first of December once again marks the premiere of The Nutcracker. Tivoli’s set designer, Queen Margrethe of Denmark, and her property master have produced an entire Christmas dinner on the stage, featuring a goose made from foam rubber and Danish doughnuts made from polystyrene balls – although they look very real.
In Tivoli’s version of the ultimate Christmas ballet, the action moves to Copenhagen in the 1870s. So we meet fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen on the stage along with August Bournonville and Tivoli’s Director – and obviously, the magical land in the second act is Tivoli, the garden in which anything can happen.
Another well-known figure can be found in the Pantomime Theatre, where Father Christmas will take up residence in his grotto, welcoming people from all over the world and listening to the Christmas wishes of children both young and old.
Christmas in Tivoli
19 November – 31 December every day from 11:00.
More information at www.tivoli.dk/en
Media contact:
Ellen Dahl
ed@tivoli.dk or +45 2272 5600