Thursday, December 21, 2017

A little bit of Christmas


A bit about Christmas in Germany.

The sixth of December is St. Nicholas day. It is tradition to buy your "Schatz" or loved ones a chocolate Santa. Some, more traditional Germans exchange their big gifts on this day and just open little ones on the 25th.

Germans open their gifts on the 24th of December and have a feast on the 25th, usually a goose with all of the German trimmings.

German Christmas markets are great, but busy, over 48 million visitors come here each December just to go to one and drink the famous Gluwein, or hot spiced wine.

More traditional Germans don't teach their kids about Santa, but instead they have a christkind, or Christ Child that delivers the goodies.

They are huge on their advent calendar here, every business and home has at least on wreath burning candles, and they have celebrations on the advent Sundays leading to Christmas.

According to the Germans, the traditional Christmas colors of red and green came from Germany, when, way back when they would cut down their tree (the green) and place preserved bright red harvest apples on the tree for decoration (the red) then their Christmas day treat was eating the apples.

Frohe Weinachten