Let It Snow!

*Even if it’s a little late in coming, my blog wouldn’t be complete without a post about German Christmas!

December 15, 2010


Since the week of Thanksgiving, winter has set in for good. Last week the temperature dipped below 10°F and settled there. We also received a hefty helping of snow – unusual for this early in the winter (December).

Although it’s milder this week, I’m still aware of my first real winter experience in four years. Sure, I visited Colorado winter over my breaks, but let’s face it, South Carolina, where I went to university, isn’t exactly known for its frigid temperatures, so it’s been awhile since I’ve actually had to LIVE winter. Huh. I like winter, and I don’t particularly mind the cold. Walking everywhere through the slush isn’t particularly thrilling, and neither is standing in a freezing train station waiting for the trains to overcome the railway chaos that descends the moment the first flakes start sticking to the steely tracks.

All in all, I really don’t mind most of the previously mentioned winter qualms, but there is one thing that would make it all worth it, if I really had a problem with winter: Weihnachtsmärkte! For those sad souls who are unfamiliar with the German Christmas Market, prepare to be awed. Almost every German city and town has at least one Christmas Market and the larger ones often last the whole Advent season. Big deal, you say? But going to the Christmas Market is THE activity for this time of year. In the evening the town squares transform into veritable fairylands and the hum of laughter and joyous voices fill the twinkling rows of stand keepers peddling their wares.


Our Pyramid at home in Colorado

Germany is known for its handmade wooden crafts: ornaments, pyramids (wooden centerpiece contraptions which spin with the help of candles hitting the fan blades attached to the top of the spinning mechanism) and Schippbogen (semi-circle, wooden-carved candle holders, which many Germans display in the windows in the evening during the Advent season). You can also find nutcrackers and smokers (little wooden men with hollow bellies for incense, a hole making a droll open mouth from which a pipe protrudes, so they appear to be smoking…hence their name). Baskets woven from chestnut-colored branches are also a traditional craft and are sold frequently. Many German Christmas stars, folded intricately to create paper ornaments and decorations, are also to be found.

So, perhaps you can imagine that someone who comes from a family that loves these types of decorations, Weihnachtsmärkte are a Mecca of all things fascinating, beautiful and easily giftable. They are also the scene of a sizeable sum of money *ahem* leaving *ahem* my purse.

All this, and I haven’t even mentioned the food yet. It might be easier just to make a list, since these are not items commonly known in the U.S.:

1. Lebkuchen – Soft, gingery cookies with lots of flavor from Christmas spices like cinnamon, ginger and cloves, which are then coated with either a clear sugar glaze or a thin layer of chocolate. Mom and I made them one year from a traditional recipe and worked all day for almost 200 cookies. They are complicated, but well-worth the effort. Here, though, I just get to enjoy the goodness. Aldi sells 7 cookies for €0.89!

2. Stollen – A dessert bread with raisins (and sometimes other candied fruit) and marzipan inside, coated with a snowy dusting of powdered sugar. So yummy. And marzipan in chocolate is also good, by the way. I love almond flavor, so I should’ve known marzipan would really grow on me! (*Note to Michelle about the marzipan pig incident of 2010…those pigs did NOT taste good!...marzipan revisited is much better!)

3. Creppelchen – This is market food. It’s basically just cubed inch, friend pieces of dough covered with powdered sugar, but they taste like the homemade French Beignets. For a while my family was making these “doughnuts” a couple times a year. *On a related note: Fair food in Germany is so much better than in the U.S. It’s definitely not healthy, but it tastes real, instead of tasting just like a fried grease mess.*

4. Gebrannte Mandeln – Toasted almonds covered in caramelized cinnamon-sugary goodness. Often they’re still hot when you buy them, so they’re both tasty and functional as a handwarmer.

5. Glühwein – Hot red wine with lots of spices in it. I guess the English equivalent would be mulled wine. If wine is not so your thing, they also have Glühpunsch.

My Adventskranz

All in all, if I have to be away from home during December, at least I’m somewhere where they really do Christmas right! The lady I rent from even brought me up an Adventskranz (Advent wreath), so I could burn a candle each Sunday of Advent, adding one each week, until they were all lit for the fourth Advent.  Here's to starting new traditions.

Deine,

N*