How Christmas is celebrated in Germany?
To celebrate a German Christmas one must be prepared to set aside more than the usual number of days for the festivities because in Germany Christmas celebrations last approximately for forty days - from December 1st to January 6th. German Christmas is quite ritualistic and involves a number of smaller celebrations mostly starting from 11th November and continuing way into the New Year. A lot of different traditional food is cooked and people visit each other and exchange gifts. The way to celebrate German Christmas is to allow its rich culture to influence your celebration.
A few suggestions
- Begin Christmas preparations from 1st of December by baking spiced cakes, gingerbread houses and cookies as well as making gifts and starting holiday decorations.
- On the night of December 5th, have the children leave out a shoe or boot for them to receive presents. Good children receive presents while bad children are supposed to receive blows from sticks.
- On Christmas Eve, have children write letters to the angel Christkind and keep them on their windowsills on Christmas Eve. You can also have children decorate their letters by brushing them with glue and then sprinkling sugar on them to make them sparkle.
- Make traditional German Christmas toys that consist of little dolls of fruit and hang them on the Christmas tree.
- Set up Advent wreaths of holly as a table centre piece with four red candles and light one candle each Sunday of the month. Remember to light the last one on Christmas Eve.
- Have the children dress up and present the Nativity play for grown ups and then go around singing carols and asking for sweets and candies.
Do’s
- Remember to follow your own family traditions and only include those German traditions that you can easily adopt.
Don’ts
- Don’t try to copy everything German because you will end up confusing yourself and consequently not have any fun.