Celebrating the Christmas Season...the German Way

All bundled up to go to soccer practice! (and beautiful rainy Belgian weather to go with it...)

Well, after much discussion about where we were going to spend Christmas this year, the family decided to stay in Brussels. They were contemplating driving the 7 hours to their hometown in Germany with 2 fighting boys, one screaming baby, and a mega-load of Christmas gifts, but then decided against it. I wonder why?

Throughout the month of December, I've learned some unique German/Belgian Christmas and Advents traditions.

First of all, unlike in the U.S., here they celebrate each of the 4 advents. To do this, the family makes a big wreath (Kranz) from pine-tree bows together on the first advent,  and this wreath is set on a giant platter and 4 thick red candles are placed in a circle around it. The first advent is on the first Sunday in December, and the second advent is on the second Sunday, and so on. To celebrate each advent, they light one of the candles during meals. So, on the first Sunday in December at dinner, we lit the first candle. Then, this candle is lit at every meal until the next Sunday, when the second candle is lit. Then both of these candles can be lit at each meal, until the next Sunday when 3 candles are lit! And finally on the 4^th advent, just before Christmas, all 4 candles are lit and the wreath looks the prettiest:)

 I never knew that there was a separate “Saint Nikolas” day on the 6^th of December, which is basically like a mini-Christmas when Saint Nikolas comes in the middle of the night and puts small gifts, chocolate and clementines in the children’s shoes. On the night of the 5^th, the boys scrubbed their biggest pair of shoes until they shined (Jonas explained to me, the bigger the shoes, the more presents Saint Nikolas will be inclined to give you). At first, I didn’t think of putting out my shoes. I figured I was too old to participate. But then Jonas asked me which shoes I would put out, and encouraged me to do so. In the morning, I was surprised to find everyone had laid out their shoes, even mom and dad, and everyone had gifts spilling out from them! Even Felix’s little blue slippers had a giant clementine inside! The boys and I each got a giant heart-shaped “Lebkuchen”, which is basically the German version of gingerbread. It is softer than American gingerbread. Each of our hearts were decorated with a saying in colorful icing. Mine said, “ Wilder Tanzbar” which translates to “wild dancing bear.” Strange, I know.

My white Sperrys look so out of place..

The boys even got extra gifts laid out on plates in the kitchen! They must have behaved very well this year:)

I also received real swiss-made Lebkuchen (the traditional way it's made, a round disc covered in chocolate). This one tasted different than the usual, with more nuts mixed into the soft dough. 

In the evening of Nov. 30^th, I was surprised to come home to a string of little cloth bags, each with their own number from 1-24 on them, hung in my room. This was my advents calendar, supposedly hung their by Oliver, who is the Christmas decorating master. 

There we also another 4 calendars downstairs for Niki, Jonas, Sylvia and Oliver. All of them had little wrapped gifts in each bag, each numbered for each day in December. Every morning I would open a little gift from my calendar. You would think I would be too old for this kind of thing, but I still got so excited each day to see what I would get! Sometimes it would be chocolate, other times a little bottle of nail polish, lip balm, face mask, earrings, or hairpieces. I knew Sylvia must have bought these things for me, not Oli. And of course I was right. She told me how much she enjoyed buying them, since she never gets to with 3 boys in the house. Although, she could of also bought nail polish for them too. Niki and Jonas LOVE it when I paint their nails for them. It’s like out new activity we do together once in a while after school. And they always tell me which colors they would wish for if they could have it.. and always asking me when I will get new colors. SO cute! I think I will get them some for Christmas:)

Oli had a Christmas party with about 30 people from his energy unit at the European Commission come to the house. They were of all different nationalities,from Hungarian to British, Swedish and German. Oli gave them a little show with the making of the real German Feuerzangenbowle (directly translated means “fire-tongues punch”), which is basically a very fancy version of Gluwein. It was also new to me, since in the xmas markets in Germany, usually they just have ready-made gluwein from a bottle. But Oli knew the real traditional recipie to make this yummy (and strong) drink.

First, he poured a couple bottles of the best quality German Christmas market Gluwein into a big heated pot. He added sweetened cherries and chopped almonds. Then, he took a large white cone of pure white sugar, specially made for the making of Gluwein, and set it on a metal bridge over the pot. Finally, he took good quality pure rum and started pouring it over the sugar. The sugar suddenly burst into blue flames and began rapidly melting into the pot, pouring down the cone like sugar lava. 

We all thought that after the 3 pours of rum, Oli would be done, but nope. He kept pouring and pouring the rum onto the sugar, the flame getting bigger and bigger until suddenly it caught the glass he was using to pour the rum on fire!

But in the end, it turned out great. Strong, but very flavorful. Here in Belgium at the markets, you don’t really find real Gluwein, let alone Feuerzangenbowle. What they serve here is simply “vin chaud” and is basically just regular sweet wine that has been heated (although they till call it gluwein in Dutch..). It doesn’t have any spices in it like the German one. A popular thing to do here though is to add a shot of amaretto to it for a more festive flavor.

Here are some other unique German Christmas decorations you can find around our house: 

When the candles are lit, the flame causes the fan at the top to spin very quickly.

A smoking man used for burning incense. You set a small cone of incense (usually a pine scent) inside and the smoke comes out of his mouth!

Poinsettia, a common decoration all around the world

The boys reading Christmas stories together:)

I just had to treat myself to the delicious hot chocolate made by one of Belgium's finest chocolatiers

Gingerbread house!

Jonas treating us to some Christmas carols!



Home-made cookies are also a big part of the German Christmas tradition. When the grandmother was here in the beginning of December, she spent the entire week in the kitchen baking dozens and dozens of different kinds of cookies, all from tradition family recipes. She made Schnee flockchen (buttery moon shapes biscuits made with crushed almonds and sprinkled with powdered sugar), möbchen (little buttery round biscuits with chocolate on top) hazelnuss kekse (little round cookies made with crushed hazelnuts and a whole hazelnut stuck on top), and kokosnuss macaroons (coconut macaroons). They are delicious, but it’s really terrible we have them in the house because I always want to eat them!! We also of course eat the traditional stollen and baumkuchen.
One other big difference between the German and American celebration of Christmas is that instead of Santa Claus (Der Winachtsmann) coming in the middle of the night between the 24^th and 25^th of December and putting the gifts under the tree, he actually arrives in the evening of the 24^th (Christmas Eve) just by ringing the doorbell and then handing out the gifts to the children. Usually the father dresses up like Santa Claus to do this. Not sure how the Koch’s perform this task (I would think the kids would still recognize their father, even if he was dressed in a red suit and wore a white beard…) but I will find out and I will be sure to let you know:)

Silliness:)

This is very random, but something funny that Niki said yesterday. I was making him “Brot mit geschmolzene Käse” (bread with melted cheese) in the microwave, and as we stood there watching the cheese melt, Niki suddenly piped up, “Did you know the heat for microwaves comes from Africa?” And then proceeded to try to convince me it was true, insisting that there are tunnels connecting Africa to all the microwaves in the world… Oh man, that kid.

Niki pictures! :)

Well, another post coming soon about Christmas in Brussels, including the beautiful Christmas market here and all the yummy, amazing things it has to offer!!