I’ve referred to “The Danish Year” before on How to Live in Denmark. It’s a series of events that are simply expected to happen every year in Denmark, even if they aren’t formal holidays. In 2025 I’m going to try to do a podcast every month about aspects of the Danish year, and how they fit into the overall context of where Denmark is coming from, and where it’s going.
“Am I being threatened?”
An international professional newly arrived in Denmark asked me this when he received a note in his apartment building mailbox. Now, this alone is unusual in Denmark. Since everything went digital about 10 years ago, we get very little paper mail. I don’t think I’ve received anything in months.
But he had. He had received a carefully decorated envelope, illustrated with crayon, in which there was a single piece of white paper, cut into a kind of snowflake pattern.
It had some Danish writing on it, a few short lines, maybe a poem. And it wasn’t signed…there were just a few mysterious dots.
The man, a highly educated engineer, was concerned. “Am I going to be kidnapped?” he asked me. “Is this some kind of ransom note?”
Gækkebrev are an old tradition
No worries, he was safe. What he had just received was a gækkebrev, or gække letter, named after the vintergække flower that used to come with these letters in the 1800s.
Gækkebreve arrive just before Easter, and they are always carefully cut from a single piece of paper, usually in an elaborate pattern. The poems are usually standard, copied from a book, and they are anonymous, but the mysterious dots they are signed with correspond to the number of letters in the sender’s name.
So if I sent you a gækkebrev, I would sign it with three dots, for K-A-Y.
If you can guess who sent the letter, I owe you a chocolate Easter egg. If you can’t then you owe ME a chocolate Easter egg.
Thus, gækkebreve are very popular with small children looking for candy.
My guess was that maybe this engineer had a young child or young neighbor who might have made this at school. And he did.
Traditions vs. digitalization
Gækkebreve are a great Danish tradition, but like many other Danish traditions, they are fighting with the country’s ambitious digital agenda.
Denmark is one of the most digitalized countries in the world. The state communicates almost exclusively online.
That means letters from the government or banks or utilities aren’t available in paper form. They come in a digital mailbox assigned to each resident.
So if you’re checking the postbox for a letter from the immigration authorities, you’re doing it wrong.
A guide to Digital Denmark
When newcomers arrive in Denmark, they get a guide to digital Denmark. They start with a CPR number – CPR stands for central personal register – which is a combination of your birthdate and a secret four-numeral addition, the last number of which is odd for men, or even for women.
(When people get gender surgery in Denmark, they often apply to change their CPR.)
All newcomers get a digital signature application for their telephones – the current one is called MITID – which they use to sign government documents and banking documents online. And they’re asked to choose a bank account as a NEMkonto, or easy account, where all government benefits or tax refunds will be digitally sent.
Digital health cards on your phone, digital drivers’ license, digital library book checkout, digital communication with your doctor – it’s all part of living in Denmark.
Death of the postal service
All this digitalization is slowly killing the Danish postal service, which has a long and colorful history.
If you read picture books to children in Denmark, it won’t be long until you encounter an illustration of a Danish postbud, or postal carrier, wearing a military-style red tunic with shiny gold buttons.
Along with happy bakers, barbers, and butchers played by various animals, the postal carriers with their red jackets and their jaunty hats and their yellow cargo bicycles are one of the standard images of a safe, comforting, pastoral Denmark.
Red and yellow dates back
The red and yellow color scheme dates back to the Royal House of Oldenburg, the family that ruled Denmark in the 1700s. Postal carriers were seen as royal representatives, delivering letters and documents on behalf of the crown.
However, the whole thing got chucked out the window in 2009, when the Swedes bought the Danish postal service and sold off all the real estate.
Now the postal carriers wear Swedish blue outfits, and they mostly deliver packages from online shopping.
Stamps are out of fashion
Digitalization has also meant the near-disappearance of stamps, and stamp collecting. It’s hard to get a stamp in Denmark these days. If you need to send something, you’re supposed to go online, buy a code, and write it on the envelope yourself.
Danish stamps generally feature the monarch. We got a new king more than a year ago, but I’ve yet to see a stamp with his face on it.
So much for the coin collectors
King Frederik X on a coin.
He has managed to get his face on a coin, although I haven’t seen one of those in real life yet either, only online.
Digitization in Denmark means there is very little cash in circulation. You pay for everything with a card, or your phone, or your watch.
Denmark is actually taking cash out of circulation. It recently eliminated the DK1000 note, with the justification that nobody was using it except criminals.
Danish traditions vs digitalization
Digitalization is certainly efficient, and good for the environment, since it eliminates a lot of paper and coins and the need to transport them around.
But there’s also some romance lost in the decline of physical objects like the letter and the gækkebrev.
Although gækkebreve now mostly come from children, they were originally love letters. Sending an anonymous note with a vintergække, a flower that symbolized the coming of spring, was a way to see if a special someone had an interest in you. Would they guess who had sent it? Would they respond?
Many young Danish people today will never receive a love letter.
They may never stick a stamp on an envelope, or flip a coin to decide whether or not to make a move.
And there’s something lost in that, a bit of romance and tradition, a bit of romantic ritual, a way to approach someone you like in a gentle and poetic way.
Which is really too bad, at a time when Denmark has a falling birth rate.