Adventszeit!

            Christmastime in Germany has been really interesting. The Weihnachtsmärkte have been really cool. Some aren’t very interesting and just have food (Crepes and waffles are very popular) and Glühwein, but the good Christmas markets have a lot of gifts you can buy. Hand carved wooden figures, glass stuff, ornaments, jewelery, scarves/hats, all sorts of things. These wooden stalls with lights and decorations are set up in the market area(s) of the town, and it’s especially fun to wander around in at night. Very gemütlich, as my host mom would say. I even was able to participate in the small Weihnachtsmarkt in Wiesloch. They had a Märchenzelt, Fairy Tale Tent, and one night my host mom had volunteered to read something for the kids. She asked me if there were any American/English fairy tales that I could perhaps present, so I thought a bit and decided on the Three Little Pigs. That was really amusing to translate into German (with the help of my host mom). “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin chin!” got turned into “nicht bei meinem kleinen schnucki-putzi-Schnäuzelchen!” You have to hear it to understand how ridiculous it sounds; I nearly died of laughter trying to say it. But the kids (and the adults) were highly amused by the whole thing. I would say the main, most-known lines first in German, then in English, so they could hear it. My host mom particularly liked huff and puff, and someone afterwards asked me to repeat “chinny-chin chin”. Quite a success, I would say. It has even become an inside joke now.

Weihnachtsmarkt in Speyer

Weihnachtsmarkt in Heidelberg

 

German traditions have been fun to experience. They have these Christmas wreaths with 4 candles on them, and they light another one on the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th Advent. The 4 Sundays before Christmas are the Advents. So by the end, one candle is really short, and the others are different lengths. My host family would sing a little song about it as they lit a new one.

 

 

Music is another tradition. They have a lot of different music than we do, and the style is different. There are American songs like Jingle Bells or whatever, but I haven’t really heard them that much. I think they prefer to stick to their own traditional songs, like Stille Nacht (naturally), O Tannenbaum, Kling Glöckchen, O du frohliche, and others I don’t know the names of. Also concerning music, the wooden flute is very popular and traditional. I went to my host brother’s class’s wooden flute concert, and sometimes my host family would get together after dinner and play Christmas songs together. Sooo gemütlich. It was quite cool, and I like the sound. Another tradition is Adventskalender. Um. Advents calendar. You get a small gift every day leading up to Christmas. We sort of have this in America, sometimes, but it’s different. Everyone here has one, and there are different kinds. You can buy some, which have these little doors that you open each day and get a chocolate, or something. I think more traditional though is to make it. My host siblings were so sweet and made one for me. It’s a long string with gold and red bags and match boxes (traditional, so I’ve heard) attached, so I got a little candy or woven-straw ornament each day.

 

 

 Speaking of ornaments, there’s the Christmas tree. I think most often, people here get real trees. So we didn’t have a tree until a few days before Christmas, which was weird for me, because I’m used to my mom’s Christmas-Craziness and 4 (or 5 if you count a foot-tall one) trees, which usually come out before Thanksgiving. My host mom said that they (not sure if “they” was her family as a child or Germans) usually don’t decorate the tree until the day before, and the kids aren’t allowed to see it until present time, because it’s the Christkind who comes with the presents and decorates the tree. As it is, our living room is too open to hide it, so we all decorated it together. Very traditional decorations are red ball ornaments, straw ornaments, and real candles. Not many people use real candles anymore, I think.

 

Christmas tree/Weihnachtsbaum

 

Then lastly, the biggest difference is they celebrate the present-opening on Christmas Eve night, and there are two Christmas days after that. What we did was pretty typical-German-Christmas, so I’ll just explain what we did:

 

We didn’t do much in the morning, just some cleaning and cooking. A bit before 4 we went to the church for Gottesdienst, the church service. There was a cute theater thing reenacting Christ’s birth from some kids, who all looked under 8. Beyond that, it was a typical Catholic Mass, though the minister did wave around this smoking-ball thing, which I hadn’t seen before, so I think they only use it for special occasions? I don’t know. After church, the kids typically go on a walk with their dad and the dog, while their mom stays to help the Christkind (Christ child, translated, though my host mom says he’s depicted as more of an angel). I helped. When the kids came back, there were presents under the tree, Christmas music was playing, and everything was lit by candlelight. Gemüüüüütlich. The kids played some Christmas music on cello and guitar while we sang along (sort of). We were all then allowed to open two presents before dinner. Dinner was very nice, with the best plates and silverware, and lots of yummy food. Salad, soup, potato rolls, goose meat, ice cream. Very nice. After cleaning up, we took our time opening presents and enjoying each other’s company. Relaxing. Chillen (ha, German slang from English “chill”). My host family was really sweet and got me some typical German things. “Die Lieblingsgedichte der Deutschen” (The Favorite Poems of the Germans), because that’s something we joke about all the time, because Germans are very philosophical, poetic, and like to think (according to my host mom). And a wooden handcrafted thing. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it’s cool and I love it, I’ll attach a picture. I think they appreciated and enjoyed the American stuff my parents sent from Kansas :). Overall, it was just a really nice evening.

 

 

From the host fam. :)

 

On Christmas day (or here, the first Christmas day), we didn’t do much. I read almost the whole day… Because I’m silly like that. I skyped with my family, which was great. My host family went to church on both Christmas days as well, but beyond that, not much has been going on. Chillen. Tomorrow we are going to travel up to the Osnabrück area to visit some of my host mom’s family. Yippee! Merry Christmas, or frohe Weihnachten!