CHRISTMAS IN GERMANY — SENTIMENT, TRADITION

Press, 18 December 1976, Page 16

CHRISTMAS IN GERMANY — SENTIMENT, TRADITION

The festive Christmas feeling is arriving in Germany together with bitter winter weather. I have become a convert to German Christmases in spite of my initial scepticism on being told that they are “something special,” and now await them with as much pleasure as I used to when Father Christmas was real. Christmas in Germany really envelops the whole month of December. Four Sundays before Christmas the Adventskranz is made. It consists of a circle of green foliage supporting four red candles and occasionally other decorations like red and white mushrooms, conifer cones or ribbons.

On the fourth Sunday before Christmas the first candle is lit. In some families special Advent songs are sung and Advent biscuits eaten.

On each of the following Sundays another candle is lit until all four are lit together on the Sunday before Christmas.

During December numerous types of Christmas cookies are baked and stored away in air-tight tins until Christmas Day. The German Christmas cake, a type of fruit bread, is called Stollen. In the Dresden area, where Stollen originated, the fruit is soaked in rum before being added to the dough and the finished product is very

rich and of a marzipanlike consistency. Elsewhere in Germany other types of Stollen have developed, usually more bread-like in nature. Great piles of Christmas Stollen are a feature of every grocery store during December. The streets in the shopping areas of the city are filled with brightly lit stalls selling fresh pretzels, toffee and chocolate coated fruits threaded on to spits, candied almonds, candy floss and buns with piping hot, grilled, German sausages. Shops stay open all day on the three Saturdays before Christmas and shopping doesn’t seem nearly as tiring when the wintery streets are lit up by the numerous stalls and decorated Christmas trees. During the last two weeks before Christmas one can buy Christmas trees at street comer markets. The forestry department takes into account the yearly sale of thousands of small conifers as Christmas trees.

The size, shape and type of tree determines the price, one of the most sought after being the blue fir, a tree which lasts a long time and has very attractive blue-gray foliage.

By Christmas Eve most families have a tree. It is traditionally decorated on the afternoon of December 24 by the parents.

The children are not allowed into the room where the tree stands until nightfall which, being winter, is quite early. Then a bell is rung, the door opened and the children may enter the darkening room where the. tree stands with its candles glowing. Tree decorations vary according to the region but hand-made objects are popular everywhere. Straw stars, tiny wooden figures and Christmas baubles are among some of the decorations used with the candles. Linder the tree lie the parcels which are opened on the evening of December 24. If Father Christmas comes each child says a rhyme or sings a song to him and the mother is solemnly asked, before the parcels are handed out, if the child has been good before. During the last few weeks before Christmas children are often unusually good and helpful in order to ensure a positive answer from their mothers on Christmas Eve.

The days of the 25th and 26th are visiting days between relatives.

On the 25th a big Christmas meal is eaten which usually includes goose. The Christmas tree stays in the comer of the livingroom. When the time comes for it to go it is taken to one of the special dumping areas reserved for Christmas trees.