So here is my promised blog post about the homemade Christmas card swap I took part in this year =) I won’t say anything about my own card other than that I had so much fun making it. I only sent it yesterday and it will take a few more days until it arrives in the US.
First of all: Thank you Emma for your beautiful card. =) Here is a picture:
and then I prepared something the other day because I know my readers (few as they may be) come from a lot of different places and they probably don’t know much about Christmas in Germany. I included youtube videos of German Christmas carols… they all make me think of my grandma so much … it’s scary…
I have no idea how much of the following is common knowledge or done the same in other countries … but this is what Christmas in like to me.
taken on the train on Monday... it was 3.15 pm ... in the afternoon ... yes the days are scarily short these days...
The Christmas season in Germany always begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. These four weeks leading up to Christmas are called “Advent” or “Adventszeit” (time of Advent). The Sundays then are numbered: the first Sunday is called first Advent, the second, second Advent and so on. On the first Advent Christmas markets open in many cities. In the bigger cities they will usually stay open until Christmas, in smaller towns they’re just one weekend. In my hometown it’s on the first Advent weekend but other towns have them on the other weekends. The Christmas markets are most famous for “Glühwein” that is hot spiced wine. But they sell so much more. There are all kinds of food, fries, Bratwurst, Crepes, yeast dumplings, pretzels, white mushrooms with garlic sauce, pizza,… you can also get all kinds of sweets. Sugar-roasted almonds are very popular for example. Then there’s a huge variety of different hot drinks, alcoholic and non-alcoholic, not just Glühwein. Also cocoa, hot juices, mead or coffee, and you can get everything with liqueur in it, Amaretto or Rum are very popular for coffee and cocoa, juices, especially orange juice is more likely to be mixed with Vodka. Yes… everyone is drunk on Christmas markets 
First Advent is also the time when people begin to decorate their houses. We are not so fond of big lights but prefer to decorate with fir branches, candles, red or gold ribbons, statues of angels, snowmen and the like. One thing has to be ready on first Advent Sunday: the Advent-wreath, Adventskranz in German. They come in all kinds, as straw wreaths, decorated with fir branches, with gold ribbons or red ones, but one thing is vital: four candles. Each of them represents one of the Advent Sundays and is lit on that day. They even come in different sizes so that you light the biggest of them on the first Sunday and let it burn down to the size of the second largest that you then light on the second Sunday and so on.
For children we have the Adventskalender, the calendar. You can buy those in all kinds of designs. Usually they are paper rectangles that have little “doors”, one for every day in December up to Christmas. Behind each door there is a little piece of chocolate. The doors are numbered so you have to search the right door every day. They also come in fancy adult ways filled with pralines. Or with toys for children. Some people make them themselves and fill little bags with small gifts or with candy.
Another tradition that is begun on the first Advent is the baking of Christmas cookies. There are a large number of different sorts and almost all have cute or interesting names… oh just the sound of Vanillekipferl, Zimsterne, Makronen, Pfeffernüsse, Lebkuchen … Unfortunately not many people still make Christmas cookies… I do, I love baking and will be found in the kitchen on all Christmas weekends.
The first special holiday in the Advent is December 6th which is the feast of St. Nikolaus – Santa Clause. That’s right, Santa comes to German kids on December 6th. But he doesn’t come on a sleigh and no one had ever heard about reindeer in Germany until a few decades ago In Germany he comes on foot and he wears a bishop’s habit, because St. Nikolaus was a bishop. So he’s dressed in red and also has a big white beard but he also wears a mitre and carries a crook. He is actually someone to be afraid of. In my own childhood we often gathered, all my parents’ friends with their children, and then “the Nikolaus” would come and bring us sweets. There are pictures on which we all are crying or on the verge of it anyway. Why are children afraid of him, you ask? Because he knows. Everything. And only the good kids get sweets. The bad ones get birched… The Nikolaus has a book with him in which everything the kids do is written down. He asked them then “Have you been good last year?” and looks very stern and then he checks his book. And often the children also have to recite a poem or something like that. And then they get their sweets. He usually doesn’t come alone: He brings his servant “Ruprecht” and he has the birch and is really mean. But I don’t believe any children ever get birched in earnest In fact it might be out of fashion to scare children like that nowadays.
St. Nikolaus as a bishop seems to be old-fashioned anyways and the “Weihnachtsmann” has taken his place. You can also find dressed up people on the Christmas markets that look like the US Santa Clause… Coca Cola’s Santa Oh yes, the Nikolaus usually brings sweets and candy, no presents… but that might be different in the families.
My sister and me got a mug filled with chocolate this year, you might have seen my picture. But we also got small presents. My sister got pyjamas and my mum gave me money to buy slippers and tights… yes… the Nikolaus only brings practical, boring gifts to us.
So the “real” Christmas holidays start on December 24th which is a half-holiday in Germany. That means that people might have to work on the mornings but in the afternoon everyone is at home. December 25th and 26th are public holidays.
Christmas Eve, in Germany called Heiligabend (holy evening), is spent with the core family usually. When we were little it was a day of unbearable suspense. It was horrible! The living room was out-of-bounds all day which for a long time meant no TV watching for us on that day… we were confined to our rooms or the kitchen. When we got a TV in the kitchen it turned out to be a great day because the TV programme is very reliable on that day. We get mainly fairy-tales that day. And Astrid Lindgren movies. Emil i Lönneberga who in German is called Michel, usually all three movies are shown and we all love them so much. Especially my mum loves the part with the pig, the drunk chickens or the soup bowl. Then usually Pippi Longstocking is shown as well. And Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel, a wonderful Czech take on the Cinderella fairy tale and usually runs three four times around Christmas. I just love that movie!
We usually watch something or other on TV while we prepare dinner as well. Something nice will always be on. Traditions for dinner on Christmas Eve are very different. Some families don’t do anything special and there’s the pronounced simple dinner variant of Frankfurters with potato salad. We never were in that fraction As long as I can think we always had either Fondue (with oil, not cheese) or raclette. I really love both very much. I love for example to put potatoes in the little Raclette pans, with mushrooms and maybe carrots and then top it with cheese and let it melt over, yummy It is also the only time I can think of that we have wine for dinner. When we were too young to have wine, my sister and me would get grape juice (which is a weird choice, much too sweet for a dinner like that… but we got the same wine glasses as our parents). Now we have both been drinking wine for a while and usually everyone is rather tipsy after dinner.
We’re not a religious family so we don’t attend church on Christmas… we only very rarely have in the past, mostly to please my grandmother. I remember that I kind of liked Christmas church services as a child because of all the music and lights. But it also was rather crowded as I remember it. Now my grandmother usually goes alone and then joins us afterwards. Every year we tell her that we’d love her to have her for dinner with us but she never agrees. She always comes upstairs when everyone has unwrapped their presents.
Yes, right, we get our presents on Christmas Eve. Usually one of my parents go into the living room first and light candles and get Christmas music playing (usually that panpipes cd or the violin cd… horribly cheesy…) it’s a wonderful sight, the half-dark room, only lighted by candles and the lights on the Christmas tree. There are sweets and candy en mass on the table and presents under the tree. Everything smells like fir-tree, candles and chocolate… So we then get our presents and play with them :p my grandma comes upstairs to see what he got and we’ll likely sit together a little while and chat. Last year my sister then left for her boyfriend’s, this year it looks like he’ll come over later on.
Who brings the presents when Santa came to us already? Well, the Christkind of course. It’s a weird entity, our Christkind. It was invented by Luther, actually but Catholics have adopted it (my family is catholic… I doubt they even know it was Luther’s invention, edit: my mother last weekend, very excited: Do you know who invented the Christkind? Do you?! Me: sure, Luther. She had heard on the radio ^^). It’s usually portrayed as a little child, sometimes angel-like with wings and long golden hair. Children are made to believe that it’s a very shy and secretive little person. Easily scared. It might take off without presents when you surprise it while it’s preparing the living room… I think it’s silly… but sweet at the same time. Oh and parents usually have special connection to the Christkind (“If you continue to be like this, I might just call the Christkind and tell him we don’t need any presents this year”)
The two Christmas holidays are usually spent with the extended family. For us that means, on the 25th we are at my paternal grandma (the one who lives downstairs) for brunch and on the 26th we meet up with my mum’s side of the family and take turns. This year we will host it and I look forward to that a lot. I won’t have to leave our house over Christmas at all! Haha.
Those Christmas brunches are two quite different affairs. At my father’s side, everything is rather solemn and we mostly do it for my grandma. The food is usually wonderful, everyone brings what they love most (we prepare scrambled eggs) and there’s obviously usually more than anyone could eat. At my grandma’s we’re made to sing Christmas songs, my cousins who play instruments are made to play something (luckily I’ve been spared that). Each and every year we are made to sing the same song which has been annoying me for some time. I’ve tried to change it so that we sing something else but no chance. It’s “Alle Jahre wieder” which translates as “Every Year Again”… there’re some ironies … but I seem to be the only one to see that… It’s a pretty song but it’s been getting on my nerves…
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpmhOxQ-hkQ]
On the 26th our celebrations are on the one hand much more laid back but on the other hand much more genuine. We meet up because we love each other. We are very close as a family and love spending time together. It always has the feeling of “we deserve this so much, to have all this special food and good times with nothing to worry about”.
On those holidays there’s another TV tradition: the Sissi movies from the 1950s with our wonderful Romy Schneider and the really handsome Karlheinz Böhm. They tell the story of the Austrian empress Elizabeth, not really historically correct but very dramatic and romantic. They usually run on Christmas or around Christmas and my sister, my mother and me are crazily fond of them. My mum has been watching them all the time, since she was a child herself and knows them by heart and me and my sister just grew up with them and love them a lot now. My dad doesn’t really understand that… he’ll come randomly into the room when we watch and exclaim “Oh Sissi – Oh Franz” which the characters always say. It’s basically accepted that the Sissi trilogy is the cheesiest German-language movie of all times… maybe the cheesiest on the whole world… but they make fantastic Christmas movies.
(they met earlier, he didn’t know who she was and he told her that he was to marry her sister. She’s shocked then. And then he decides to propose to her instead here. She says “no! never” but then of course he goes to her with the roses at the dance… poor Nene (Helene, Sissi’s sister)… and poor Romy Schneider never really was able to shake the image of the beautiful, little princess …)
good heaven’s I just found an English version … well that is weird … but interesting I didn’t know this existed
well… merry Christmas! (though I have a feeling that this will not be my only Christmas related post also … if you have questions, go ahead )
