Christmas Around the World, Part 2 – Germany

During this Advent season, we are continuing our tradition of taking a trip around the world, exploring Christmas traditions from different countries. This week, we’re headed to Germany!

Many Christmas traditions that are common in the United States actually originated in Germany, including the Advent calendar (Adventskalendar), Advent wreath (Adventskranz), and Christmas markets (Weihnachtsmärkte). You can read about some of them here. But there are several others that haven’t quite “arrived” here in the same way, and might be fun for your family to try out this year.

In fact, this very night is St. Nicholas (Sankt Nikolaus) Eve. Tonight, you can have your children polish their boots (or be slightly less German and clean their sneakers) and leave them outside the front door. In the morning, on St. Nicholas Day, they just might wake up to footwear filled with nuts, candy, and small gifts – if they’ve been good, that is. Beware of Krampus, however, for tonight is his night as well. He is a devil/beast-like sidekick to St. Nicholas who teaches lessons to the kids on the naughty list, and in some parts of Germany, people will dress up like him and wander the streets on Krampus Nacht. This tradition certainly makes what we learned last week about Caga Tió, the Spanish “poop log,” producing an onion to indicate he is out of gifts, seem a lot less off-putting. That said, you can choose for yourself how much you’d like to terrify your children this holiday season, and whether you’d perhaps like to skip the Christmas demon and stick to the candy-filled shoes.

Maybe you’d also like to spend a few hours making Christmas stollen! It’s a bread with dried fruits, candied citrus peel, nuts and spices, which when covered in powdered sugar is meant to represent Baby Jesus in his swaddling clothes. You can read about its history AND get a recipe here. Be aware that it’s a very involved recipe, and that it can be eaten right out of the oven or let sit for 2-3 weeks for the flavors to really soak in, so if you’d like to have some on Christmas, you should probably start baking now!

If your family wakes up to gifts from St. Nicholas (or has a visit from Krampus), share pictures with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!