The winds of change continue to gust through Elk Horn. Our gift shop renovations are finally complete, and we’re excited to see how the opening of this year’s travel season starts for us. The kitchen merchandise area is finally complete, as is the aebleskiver pan display. Our Christmas wall is redone with new and exciting lines we have picked up in the last month, and the facelifts to our candle area and Viking corners are also complete. To add to all of this, our new Welcome Center hub has been running smoothly and we’re able to showcase everything going on with ease.

To highlight a few of these changes, we’re particularly excited about the new aebleskiver display. We sell 5 different pans including 3 cast iron pans, an electric pan, and a cast aluminum pan. Our visitors always have lots of questions about the differences and recommendations, and so now each pan has a small sign highlighting unique features as well as care instructions. Meanwhile, the new shelving we’ve acquired from IKEA gives the area a nice, modern look while keeping all of the food items more organized and easier to find.

We’re also ready to introduce our new line of artificial flowers from Gry & Sif, a Danish design company. We have tulips and anemones in various colors and other accent pieces to compliment any arrangement. To compliment these, we’ve also added a new line of vases, made in 3 sizes using 3D printing and recycled materials.

Finally, we are delighted to share that the Danish Lakrids are back in the shop again after not having them for a few years. Chocolate-licorice candies in a variety of classic flavors are on the shelves now and we have the true licorice candies arriving soon in sweet, red, and salmiak.

Looking ahead, we will soon have two new t-shirt designs featuring our main Danish Windmill – Elk Horn, Iowa design in both solid red and cardinal (the color of our crewneck and hoodies). We will pick up a long sleeve version of the solid red shirt next Fall. We hope to have the new tshirts in the shop sometime next week and we expect them to go quickly.

And on March 21^st we will join the Danish Villages in celebrating another Throwback Thor’s Day featuring a Danish meal at Norse Horse tavern as well as aebleskiver at the bakery. The windmill will be open late as usual along with other businesses in town. This is a great opportunity to get a delicious Danish meal and see all the changes we’ve made.

Finally, we want to remind everyone of our fundraiser for the daycare coming up in April. Every Sunday will feature a food option in town and we will be donating all tour revenue (donations and admissions) to the local daycare, Kids in the Village. The first session will be on Sunday, April 7^th and the Kringle Man will be open from 10am – 2pm serving aebleskiver and medisterpølse.