Christmas in Germany is magical. Almost every sizeable town hosts a Christmas Market (weihnachtsmarkt) that is a wonderful light-studded affair in their town center. In America we decorate our individual homes with lights and decorations, but in Germany they decorate their town centers instead. There are dozens or hundreds, depending on the town size, of booths selling hand-made local ornaments, shoes, socks, candles, jewelry, food, and assorted products. Each booth has a lavishly decorated roof often with moving mechanical parts or figures. And these booths are lined up side by side, row by row in an amazing assortment of offerings; roasted chestnuts, handmade candles, wonderful chocolates and pastries among other things.
And there is always at least one booth offering hot Glühwein for sale by the cup. It is a mulled, red wine tradition that is now synonymous with Christmas in Germany.
Here is a recipe below:
Glühwein
A bottle of red wine
250 ml of water
The juice from one lemon
(Or Orange instead)
Cinnamon stick
And a few cloves
Put everything in a pot, and make it hot, but not boiling. Before you serve it, take the cloves and cinnamon stick out. And then cut thin slices of the lemon or orange and add it to the glass. Also, have sugar available for everyone to sweeten it as they would like.
Another Christmas tradition in Germany is the celebration of St. Nikolaus day on the sixth of December. This was a fun tradition that is separate from Christmas Eve. It is a celebration of the patron saint’s life of giving and thus including the giving of gifts. Children set out their shoes the night before and then wake up to shoes stuffed with candies, nuts and small toys. We were told by our neighbor that St. Nikolaus had visited the local kindergarten classes and we saw a man dressed as Saint Nikolaus walking around town amidst a crowd of children.
In southern Germany where we lived Christmas Eve was focused solely on the celebration of the coming of the Christ Child and took place on December 25th. This was completely separate from the celebration of St. Nikolaus. In old, German tradition, the Christmas tree does not appear till Christmas Eve, is lighted with actual candles not electric lights and usually has brightly decorated gifts from the Christ Child underneath.
We accompanied our next door neighbors to their church in a neighboring town on Christmas Eve and despite not understanding more than about 10 words in all, it was lovely to hear beautiful music and familiar carols sung in another language. We also watched them light the Advent candle and the children perform a nativity play set in modern day Germany. Afterwards the neighbors headed home to open gifts while we then stayed up late watching Christmas specials on the AFN (Armed Forces Network) Satellite TV. Much to our children’s chagrin, we insisted on keeping our American tradition of opening presents on Christmas morning instead of Christmas Eve like all our German neighbors!
Early in the morning, the kids were up emptying Christmas stockings “hung by the chimney with care” (Another American Christmas tradition). Then Christmas day after opening presents and breakfast we went to an American friend’s house (the Conner's)for the afternoon/evening. We enjoyed having a traditional (American) Christmas dinner with them, talking and watching the kids play and then eating and talking some more! It was a day of feasting and warm fellowship for sure.
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