The nonprofit Solvang Danish Days Foundation has announced the festival’s 2024 Danish Maid, Kaeley Reid, will preside over this year’s 87th Solvang Danish Days, Sept. 20-22.

Kaeley Reid wears a Danish Maid dress with dark red bodice, blue skirt and white apron that was inspired by her mother’s Danish Maid dress. (Mike Mesikep photo)
Kaeley Reid’s Danish Maid dress was inspired by the costume her mother wore when she was Solvang’s Danish Maid. (Mike Mesikep photo)

Solvang Danish Days, Danish culture and heritage festival, has grown and evolved since its humble beginnings in 1936, when a one-day celebration commemorating the 25th anniversary of Solvang’s 1911 founding first conceived.

Solvang Danish Days is now a weekend-long event showcasing the city’s Danish heritage. The annual festival includes authentic food, music, dancing, parades, live entertainment, and family activities.

The 2024 Solvang Danish Days theme is Det Dansk, Det Dejligt, or It’s Danish, It’s Delightful!.

Kaeley’s Danish roots stem from her maternal grandfather Hans “Farfar” Birkholm (1946-2019), who was born in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Birkholm moved to Solvang with his family in 1957. He attended Solvang Elementary School and Santa Ynez High School, where he met his future wife, Reid’s grandmother Denise “Nisie” Birkholm (1951-2018).

Hans and Denise raised three children in Solvang, including Kaeley’s mother, Karine Birkholm-Reid, who was the 1998 Danish Days Maid.

Hans and Denise Birkholm were instrumental in the organization and growth of Solvang Danish Days. He was one of the original Solvang Danish Days Foundation Board members, and she was credited with numerous duties which kept the festival running each year, until her passing in 2018.

Kaeley’s family has been involved in Danish Days weekend for decades, and she experienced her first Danish Days festival when she was just nine months old.

Her grandmother Denise handmade all of her childhood Danish Days dresses, which she proudly wore as she sat in the Viking ship with her grandfather during the Friday evening Torchlight Parade.

Kaeley’s dad Peter Reid would help his father-in-law Hans with the early morning tasks in the Aebleskiver Breakfast tents, starting his Danish Days weekend mornings as early as 5 a.m., when the aebleskiver stoves get fired up for the day.

On Saturday and Sunday mornings of the festival weekend, Kaeley would help her grandfather and her father in the breakfast tents, learning how to make the popular aebleskiver.

“Once we were done with breakfast duties, I would gather with all of the event workers for lunch in the Solvang Festival Theater garden, and dance with my friends before getting to participate in the Danish Days Parade on my Farfar’s golf cart,” Kaeley said.

“On Sundays, I would walk in the Children’s Parade, tossing candy from the back of a cart that was usually driven by my mother,” she recalled.

Kaeley noted that her mother Karine has always held the family’s Danish traditions and culture near, and that after her mother graduated from high school, she moved to Denmark for a year to attend a Danish folk school in Helsingør.

“Having the honor of being this year’s Danish Days Maid means the world to me,” Kaeley said. “I would love to carry on the family tradition, and follow in my mom’s footsteps. My parents have always encouraged me to follow my dreams, and this is a big one.”

As with many Danish Maid dresses throughout the history of the event, Solvang resident Roberta Skidmore designed and crafted the 2024 Danish Maid dress.

Kaeley’s dress was inspired by her mother’s Danish Maid dress and it incorporates her grandmother’s dress-making style.

The dress’ blue skirt is a nod to the blue found in the Scottish flag, in honor of Kaeley’s father, who moved to the U.S. from Scotland at the age of 17.

The red bodice is fashioned after the red in the Danish flag, and the dress includes fabric swatches from “Nisie’s” and “Farfar’s” Danish costumes, which have been sewn onto the inside of Kaeley’s dress.

Now 16 years old, Kaeley attended Santa Ynez Valley Presbyterian Preschool, Solvang Elementary, and, after a brief time living in South San Francisco and attending elementary and middle schools there, returned to the Santa Ynez Valley and attended Jonata Middle School.

Kaeley is currently a junior at Santa Ynez Valley Union High School, where she has enjoyed cheerleading for the football team and stays busy with her classes, the majority of which are honors and AP classes.

“As this year’s Danish Maid, I can’t wait to represent Solvang and present our Danish history and culture to both locals and visitors, some of which travel from all over the world to join in our annual Danish Days festivities,” she said.

“I am happy to give back to the community I hold so dear and most importantly, I will be honoring the memory of my grandparents, who left me too soon. I know they will be smiling down on me,” she said.

For more about Solvang Danish Days including a brief history of the event, 2024 event weekend schedule and details, parade applications and contact information, visit www.SolvangDanishDays.org.

Aebleskiver Breakfast tickets and Dane For A Day ticket bundles are on sale at solvang-danish-days-2024.eventbrite.com.

For more about the Solvang Danish Days Foundation, visit https://www.solvangdanishdays.org/contact-us/.