The Christmas season begins with the first advent Sunday. Traditional households have a advent wreath in the family room and the walls, doors and windows are tastefully decorated with handmade German Christmas crafts. The wreaths are decorated either modern, with trendy colored decorations, or in traditional colors with orange slices, cinnamon sticks, apple slices and pinecones. Each wreath holds four candles, representing each of the four advent Sundays before Christmas. With each new Sunday, another candle gets lit so that by the last Sunday before Christmas, all four candles are burning. The lighting of the advent candle is a special moment in the homes with children. The family spends a quiet moment together.
On the 6th of December, the German version of Santa Claus visits the children. His name is Sankt Nikolaus. On the night of the 5th of December, the kids place their cleaned shoes outside the door. The next morning, the shoes are filled with goodies.
Assisting Sankt Nikolaus is Knecht Ruprecht. He is normally dressed in a brown robe and carrying rods in his belt to give the bad children and a basket on his back full of sacks of tangerines, peanuts, spiced cookies and chocolate to give to the good children. Theodor Storm (1817-1888) wrote a popular poem about Knecht Ruprecht which is learned still today by all of the children in school.
Christmas Eve in Germany
Traditionally on the 24th of December, on Christmas Eve, the father of the house solely decorates the tree in the morning and the room gets closed off so that the Christkind (translated: Christ Child but is an angelic figure) can bring the gifts in the afternoon while the family is at church services. The mother of the house spends the morning decorating the home for the occasion and cooking a small dinner which is often a small meal like Bratwurst and Sauerkraut. Some choose to serve a salad or a potato salad with the meat. The potato salad varies, depending on which region of Germany you live in. The northern area of Germany serves a potato salad with a mayonaise type of dressing. In the south of Germany, a potato salad can contain vinegar and mustard. The mother also spends her time preparing for the Christmas dinner for Christmas day in advance.
The kids get to see and open their gifts after the evening meal and when it is dark outdoors. This adds to the mood. The tree gets lit for the first time with real candles or with traditional white lights.
Christmas day is family day. The family goes to church in the morning and comes home to eat their Christmas dinner. Often friends or relatives are invited to join them.
The German Kitchen at Christmas - It starts with baking goodies for the holidays:
In German kitchens, lots and lots of goodies are being baked for the holidays! The most traditional of the baked goods is Lebkuchen. The taste can be compared to gingerbread but in its own unique way. Other wonderful tasty seasonal baked goods are Vanilla Scones or Vanille Kipferln, Christstollen, Linzer Sterne (by Schwarzwald-Tage.de), Marzipantorte, Rumkugeln, Dominosteine, Cinnamon Stars or Zimtsterne and so much more.
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