One of my favorite things about interviews is the moment they stop feeling like interviews and start feeling like conversations. You’re laughing, the awkwardness loosens its grip, and suddenly you’re not worrying about the next question. You’re just enjoying the people in front of you.
That was the joy of talking with Emilie Ullerup and Corey Sevier about A Danish Christmas. Between family traditions, Christmas dinners, and a filming location that had me questioning my willingness to ever climb anything again, there was plenty to talk about. But what stayed with me was how warmly they spoke about the people and experiences that make Christmas theirs.
Watching the movie, I hadn’t known quite what to expect. What I found was something peaceful, the kind of Christmas story that invites you to put everything else down and stay awhile. Did I also feel a little called out by its reminder to stop working and actually live? Unfortunately, yes. Apparently, even my Christmas viewing has decided to stage an intervention.
I love my work. But loving something doesn’t mean it should get every available piece of you, especially when there are people you love waiting for you to look up. That’s part of what I appreciated about this movie: its invitation to be present feels less like a lecture and more like someone pulling out a chair for you.
THE TRADITIONS THAT TELL US CHRISTMAS HAS ARRIVED
For me, Countdown to Christmas is one of the signs that the holiday season has officially begun. Everyone has something: a song, a smell from the kitchen, the first night the tree lights glow in the living room. I wanted to know what that something was for them.
For Emilie, it’s a family confection-making day, a tradition she said was originally going to be included in the movie.
“We get together with my whole family, my cousins, my cousins’ kids, my sisters, all of our children,” she explained. “And we just, like, make chocolate and candies all day long.”
“And until that day has happened, like, we’re not there. We’re not ready for Christmas.” she added.
I had to laugh because it’s been a long time since I made Christmas treats. When I miss things or I feel uncomfortable in a memory – I laugh. Since I’m not supposed to have sugar, that part of the season looks different for me now. But listening to her, I wasn’t really thinking about the chocolate. I was thinking about a whole family setting aside a day to be together.
We always did that when I was a kid.
That’s the beautiful thing about traditions. You think you’re making candy, but you’re also giving the children in the room something they might spend the rest of their lives remembering.
Corey understood the importance of the holiday baking, too.
“I’ve been lucky to be blessed with a family that we have some good bakers in the family. So similar, you know, when the Christmas cookies start coming out, all of a sudden, you’re like, wait a minute, it’s Christmas.”
He also remembered childhood advent calendars, though getting the tree is a major seasonal marker for him now.
“And then once we hit that, once the Christmas lights are up, we’re kind of off to the races,” he said. “So I’m actually getting very excited for Christmas this year, because it’s right around the corner.”
Both of them lit up talking about Christmas. But listening to their answers, it was clear how much of that excitement belonged to family. The cookies and lights matter because of who we associate with them. Sometimes the smallest ritual holds an entire roomful of people.
A BEAUTIFUL VIEW I WILL APPRECIATE FROM THE GROUND
Of course, I also needed to ask about the tower scene. If you’ve seen the movie, you know the one: Marie is looking down, the ground is much too far away, and I am reminding myself that watching a movie does not mean I am personally up there.
I don’t do heights. The Church of Our Saviour might offer a beautiful view, but my preferred view is one that doesn’t require me to negotiate with my survival instincts.
Emilie’s description did not change my mind.
“So it gets narrower the further up you go, which is also just a mind trip,” she said. “Like, suddenly you’ve got just, just your, the width of your body. And you’re now at the tippy top, and then just the railing. And then you’re just looking down. So no acting required.”
Corey pointed out that reaching the filming spot was its own adventure.
“You go inside the tower at a certain point, then you go out,” he explained, praising “the camera team that are walking backwards down this thing while we’re shooting the scenes.”
“And they had to be very brave for us.” he added. They both felt pride and a sense of family when speaking of their crew.
Walking backwards. At that height. I have nothing but respect for that crew, and absolutely no desire to join them.
For Emilie, though, the experience offered something special: a chance to see her own city from somewhere she had never been.
“And I had never, I mean, I’m obviously from there, and I had never been up there,” she said. “So it was a real treat.”
I loved that. There’s something fitting about a Christmas movie giving someone a new way to see a familiar place. We can become so accustomed to what’s around us that we forget there are still things to discover.
I will be discovering those things at ground level, but the sentiment stands.
LEARNING WHAT OUR PARENTS MADE LOOK EASY
One of the things I appreciated about Marie’s story is her growing understanding of her parents. Getting older has certainly made me more aware of how much mine had to pull off for us. As a child, you see Christmas happening. Later, you begin to understand that someone was making it happen.
So I asked what they appreciated now that they hadn’t fully understood what their parents were doing when they were younger.
“Raising me,” Emilie answered.
We all laughed. I had meant for Christmas specifically, but honestly? A fair answer, and one I could understand giving myself.
When we got back to the holidays, she brought up the dinner.
“These older generations, they can make everything come out at the same time,” she said, marveling at crispy duck arriving alongside potatoes that haven’t gone cold. “Like, I don’t know how you do it.”
Look, potatoes are a serious matter to me. I understood her concern immediately.
But beneath the laughter was something tender: recognizing the work inside a memory you once thought was effortless. Someone timed the food, remembered what everyone liked, and tried to make the day feel special. Appreciating that doesn’t take the magic away. For me, it makes the love behind it easier to see.
CAPTURING CHRISTMAS WHILE IT WAS HAPPENING
Corey also spoke about experiencing the season during production.
“We are literally amongst Christmas happening in Copenhagen, which made it absolutely incredible.”
That answered a question I’d had while watching. Rather than recreating the holidays at another time of year, this production filmed during the season itself. According to Emilie, that authenticity was important from the beginning.
“The other thing we have to do is shoot in December because we can’t make this look like this in February,” she recalled. “Like, that’s just not going to feel authentic.”
Making that happen wasn’t effortless.
“So it meant that we had an incredibly short lead time to make the movie happen,” she explained. “But I think, like, the sacrifice and the sleepless nights and all of the things we had to do to make it happen was worth it for what we captured on screen, because you could turn the camera literally anywhere. And there was an authentic Christmas.”
That care matters. The peaceful feeling I loved while watching wasn’t something that simply appeared; people worked to capture it. Much like the family dinner we’d been discussing, there was effort behind the warmth.
I could have talked with these two much longer, but our time was up. Funny how quickly that happens when you stop feeling awkward and start enjoying the conversation.
I came away thinking about the things I want to make more room for this Christmas. Not another task squeezed into an already crowded day, but a conversation I don’t rush. Time with family that doesn’t compete with my inbox. A familiar tradition I let myself enjoy instead of hurrying through.
The workaholic in me might need a few reminders. But the Grinch in me? Well, the ice started melting, and my heart grew a little bigger. These two reminded me that the moments we share with family aren’t the things we should squeeze in after everything else. They’re the things worth putting everything else down for.
