On the first Sunday in Advent (the fourth Sunday before Christmas), many families in Germany set up an Advent wreath, or “Adventskranz”, to initiate the Advent season. A typical Advent wreath is made of evergreen branches and decorated with red-green ribbons, pine cones and four candles, one for each week of Advent. Supposedly, traditional families still gather around the wreath on each Advent Sunday to light the next candle and sing Christmas carols, although I may suspect this was more the case in years past than now. Supposedly, the Advent wreath provided the total evergreen look in a home since the Christmas tree was usually decorated on Christmas Eve.
Buddy and I even noticed that all the churches hang the advent wreath from the ceiling of their churches and cathedrals, rather than “setting” the wreath on a table or a stand, as we see in US churches.
Additionally, Germans call the time from December 1st to December 24th "Adventszeit", which means the time before Christmas Eve. Parents often give their children Advent calendars that count down the days till Christmas. This I can confirm as I see Advent calendars in every shop I visit in Germany right now. Most of us are probably familiar with the concept, but just in case you are not: each day in December, children open one of the doors and receive either a small chocolate in the shape of a star, a tree, or a little toy. These calendars supposedly make the wait to Christmas Eve (for opening all the gifts a little easier). In my mind, waiting to open Christmas gifts is never easy!
1 comment:
According to a Swiss colleague, this is pretty true. He remembers the following:
The advent wreath observation is very accurate, as they are still part of the Christmas traditions here (in Switxerland). [Growing up]in our home, the candles were only lit on Sundays. Also true, the Christmas tree is only put up during on Christmas eve day, so that everyone would get the first glimpse of the Christmas tree when the family gathers for the Christmas dinner which - as you've rightly said - is usually taking place on Christmas eve as well.
The Christmas tree is taken down on January 6th, known as 3-kings-day (literal translation). There you'll find another little tradition in Switzerland (and probably in parts of Germany) the 3-kings-cake. This is a sweetish bread thing made out of several buns with raisins and almonds... in one of the buns there is a little plastic king hidden (careful while eating). Who ever ends up with the plastic king gets to wear a paper crown and is king for the day... loved it as a kid!
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