One of the best things about being in Germany at Christmas is just how important Christmas is here. Sure, Berlin is supposedly the atheist capital of Europe yet Christmas / Weihnachten is still their most important public holiday. It is nearly a 3 day thing over here with places closing mid-day on Christmas Eve and then having both a First Christmas Day (the 25th is ersten Weihnachtstag) and the 26th is a public holiday here too: "Zweite Weihnachtstag" (Second Christmas Day).
One way you can tell Christmas is such a "thing" here is the Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas Markets) that start popping up all over town once it's Advent season. Literally all over town. Because there is obviously no Thanksgiving here in Germany, how do they decide when to start getting ready for Christmas? Advent: the four Sundays preceding Christmas. We'll get to that in a second, though, after the Weihnachtsmärkte.
The Weihnachtsmarkt is exactly what it sounds like: an open-air Christmas-themed market. With Christmas decorations, food and drink stalls, booths with various goods, and, quite often, rides. The closest thing I can think of from home is the Thornton WinterFest we liked to check out. (Only one weekend a year). Back home, there was Christmas tree decoration contests, a mini Christmas village of which you could peek in the windows, Santa and Mrs. Claus, and many of the same sorts of wares. At home it would be more hot chocolate or egg nog and funnel cakes, here it is Glühwein (a warm, mulled wine drink) and candied nuts. At home it would be booths of Avon and Juice Plus with the occasional candle or salsa stand, here it is winter hats, nutcrackers, and, well, yeah...candles still. :)
Many were free to get into, some required a fee. The first one we went to was the first weekend of Advent, the weekend just after American Thanksgiving. We went to the Schloss Charlottenburg (Charlottenburg Palace) because it wasn't too far from home and it was supposed to be one of the more lovely markets. It was free all the time except for after 4 p.m. on Saturdays. Guess when we got there? Like, 4:30 on a Saturday. Grrr. So we forked over 3€ per adult and walked around.
We also finally got to sample some chestnuts, roasted on an open fire. We'd never had them before. Never even seen them pre-Germany, to be honest. Once we moved here, there were "conkers" (what they call them in British English) alllllllll over the park and the kids' school playground. Our friend Kim told us what they were in German (Maronen) and that you could get them at Christmas markets. We couldn't wait. We bought a serving as soon as we could:
They remind us of potatoes...both in flavor and in texture. But they're way more expensive than potatoes, that's for sure. 100 g (3 1/2 oz) of maronen (about 6 or 7 chestnuts) was 3€ ($3.65).
I was also excited to try Glühwein but red wine quite often gives me bad headaches. However, when in Germany...right? So, Jason and I shared our first:
.
Just like with the beer festivals here, you pay for your drink and the cup deposit. In this case, the Glühwein was 3€ and the Pfand (deposit, ransom) for the cup is another 3€. You could walk off with the cup as a lovely souvenir (and honestly I was tempted to collect them but that's not really Jason's thing) or you turn the cup back in and get back your 3€.
It was a very cold night there in Berlin and the Glühwein is very, uh, warming. The kids wanted hot chocolates but I told them I'd get them at home, I wasn't going to pay for it there. We're so mean.
We visited a few other markets throughout the season, but honestly I had plans to hit many more while the kids were in school or with the kids after school. But darn if there wasn't someone sick for much of December. Ugh. Maybe next year. And speaking of, if there was a time to visit the S's in Germany, Advent would be a fun time. *wink*wink*nudge*nudge* The sun sets quite early here in the winter and you can enjoy the festive Christmas markets in all their twinkling glory starting at about 3:30 or 4 p.m. You can enjoy them earlier usually, as well, but they won't be as twinkly.
So, back to Advent. My German-only speaking elderly neighbor always wished me a happy Advent. Not Christmas. Advent. There are Advent calendars galore around here. From a box of Advent teas, to liquor filled chocolate calendars for the grown ups to various other ways to mark off the days to Christmas, it's much more a "thing" here. Growing up, I always had a chocolate calendar. My kids always have too. This year was no exception, and it was much easier to find good ones:
This year found us also embracing another Advent tradition: the Adventkranz:
The kids did Advent wreaths at their Lutheran preschool back home, it's certainly a part of Christmas for some people in the States, but we personally never did the wreath. However, the wreaths are readily available over here. From every train station florist to grocery stores to IKEA, it was simple to find this one that even matched our décor. And it smelled so nice...real evergreen boughs! Nearly every night at dinner, we'd light the candles for where we were in Advent. Each Sunday you add a new candle. And we used the daily readings from the Bible that we found here at Focus on the Family's site. It was definitely something I'd like to keep doing no matter where we are in the world.
Being in Germany, we've also added yet another I'd-like-to-keep-doing-this tradition: Nikolaustag (Saint Nikolaus Day). It falls on December 6 and even though in America, "Saint Nick" is pretty much synonymous with "Santa Claus", he's not the same dude here. This was a difficult concept as some of the German teachers didn't quite get this. Here in Germany, the guy that brings presents at Christmas is the Weihnachtsmann (Christmas man). So, trying to speak "our" language, the teachers that Friday the 5th bid us a happy weekend with Santa Claus's visit because again, that obviously sounds the same as Saint Nikolaus. My kids looked at me weird but I was just like "yeah, Saint Nikolaus Day. Mmmm hmmmm. Thanks." And we came home to clean our shoes.
The children here clean up their shoes and set them outside the night of the 5th to be filled by Saint Nikolaus. It's pretty minor, from what I understand: fruit, nuts, perhaps some chocolates, maybe a tiny toy. We were warned not to choose our biggest shoes as that might make us seem greedy and therefore might only be left a tree branch (to be used as a switch...yeouch!). Buuuuut, this one didn't quite get the concept of "You don't want to seem greedy":
Big brother filling her in:
Easton took the easy way out and "cleaned" a pair of fancy shoes he wore maybe once in his life. I don't even think they fit him anymore. Rascal.
We also didn't put our shoes all the way outside our door. I think in some buildings / neighborhoods, neighbors act as Saint Nick and put things in the kids' shoes...but ours are the only children in the building and I just wasn't sure what I could expect. So, they stayed inside our own flat this year. But they got filled:
A hollow chocolate Saint Nick:
Some chocolate coins for luck:
And some teeny tiny toys:
The kids also each got a clementine. None of them like such things. And some marzipan kartoffeln (marzipan potatoes) which again, none of them liked. Sigh. Maybe next year the shoes will indeed make their way OUT of the flat. :/
Another part I liked was how they got into it at the schools. Easton's class pretended to be Saint Nikolaus for Dalton's class and sent little notes (Easton got Dalton, awwww).
And Autumn's kindergarten stitched up little burlap sacks and when they came back from the weekend, Saint Nikolaus had filled them with nuts and a clementine. Same thing with Dalton, his little house shoes they keep at school had been filled with a little something. :)
Stollen is another German tradition, of course. Although, that one's not new to me. My mom and I would go to a Christmas craft fair every November and she'd usually buy us a big expensive stollen to share. I bought one here that I found wasn't filled with raisins:
However this one was filled with a poppy seed mash. It was only so-so and the kids all hated it. Next year I will get a better one. More marzipan!
And speaking of Christmas treats, I didn't get to make any of our traditional Christmas treats. Normally I'd make some of my mom's peanut butter cup tartlets, but the mini peanut butter cups are super expensive and hard-ish to find here. Or Magic Bars. No graham crackers, no butterscotch chips, and chocolate chips are expensive... I *think* they have sweetened condensed milk over here but it's probably better if I don't know. ;) Fudge is hard to make here: marshmallow crème isn't just everywhere. Corn syrup is nearly impossible to find. Heck, even vanilla extract is difficult to come by here. I still have some from home having stocked up before we moved. Baking here is different so I need to embrace some of the different Christmas foods here.
One tradition from home we've made sure to keep was getting each person a new ornament for the year. If we'd been home and able to run to Hallmark or Kohl's, I know the kids would have chosen something different, but this year the little two chose theirs from the Käthe Wohlfahrt stand at a nearby Christmas market.
Autumn chose this tin of Lebkuchen (German gingerbread) treats:
And Dalton chose this small stocking with a bear that reminds him of his beloved Boo Boo Bear:
We stopped by the Lego store on our way home for Easton's:
Cute little concept, huh? He built it as soon as we got home.
I chose this one for the family's ornament for the year:
And I also kept with my tradition of buying a Nutcracker for the year. In Germany! A real German nutcracker! But at the Christmas markets, none of them were really what I was looking for. I was closest to buying one that was Elsa colored and sparkly but was holding out for one that was better.
When I posted a pic of my collection from home, a dear friend brought me a Nutcracker that she had "laying around" her house:
So sweet.
But I also bought a German one.
I liked him because he looks German. His lil Lederhosen (leather [shorts] pants), his accordion. And his "Made in Germany" stamp:
His box:
He is definitely better made than most of my other Nutcrackers. No bits of hot glue showing, no crookedly glued on beards. I like him. And he came with a little brochure that told me things I never knew about Nussknacker, despite collecting them for years:
What I didn't like? The price that comes with authentic: he is only about 10 inches (25 cm) tall but was 65€ ($80!). Ouch. But now I have one. Up next while living in Germany, is to get a real Weihnachtspyramide and a better Räuchermännchen (those smoking incense guys) while we're here.
And other things I didn't like about our first Christmas in Germany? We never saw Santa. The kids seemed okay enough with this, bless their hearts. I'm so proud of how they've rolled with all these transitions living internationally. But, anyway, every year we would go to the mall and sit on Santa's lap and laugh at whichever of our kids was terrified of the big guy that year or rejoice that everyone was finally okay with it. That's when they'd make their Christmas request known. It was always a special day. But Santa is very hard to find here. And I've heard that when you do, it's not the same. You don't get to sit on his lap and he probably speaks German anyway. So, we didn't try too hard to find him. A nice man from church dressed up as him at the church Christmas party, but my kids knew he was a nice man from church. They recognize you have to have a real beard to be the real Santa.
Easton didn't even bother with the nice man from church. Instead he (and Dalton) eventually sent emails to the real-bearded Santa to let him know what they'd like for Christmas, please. And, good thing Santa ordered from the States as Easton began to panic last minute that the game he wanted would be in German so he specifically asked Santa for English in his email. :) Whew. Crisis averted. Dalton was like, "He wouldn't give you German, he knows you. He replied to your email in English." And he did. Santa@santaclaus.com wrote back.
One tradition we did not adopt, was that their Santa / Weihnachtsmann comes on Christmas Eve evening here. I guess you go to church (which we couldn't because Easton was sick--Jason went, he played in their acoustic worship set), but I guess you go to church and then come home and Santa has been and you open your presents at night on Christmas Eve after church and a nice family dinner. We've always opened one gift on Christmas Eve night and kept that tradition this year.
Another tradition we tried to keep was our annual Gingerbread house making. Another dear friend (different than Salmon fisherman nutcracker dear friend) hooked us up with a couple of kits but poor sick Easton kept us house bound and we needed stuff for the icing. We plan to make it over break still.
I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting but this post is beyond long enough. The hardest part was not being around any family and then with Easton being so darn sick and germy, we couldn't do anything with friends or others either. But we were thankful to have each other and our low-key Christmas DAYS. Till next time...
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