German Christmas Traditions

Hey everyone!

I hope you're as excited for Christmas as I am! I went home on Saturday and I'm so happy to be with my family and friends again!

Today I want to tell you about German Christmas Traditions and about our Family Traditions in special.

The Days Before Christmas 

I found out that people in many other countries start decorating their Christmas Trees right at the beginning of December. In Germany most of the families decorate their trees quite late, a few days before Christmas. In our family it's a tradition to decorate the tree on the 24th of December, we're decorating all together while listening to music and eating bisquits.

One of my most favourite things before Christmas is baking cookies and bisquits and building a gingerbread house. My brother and I bake them every year! The gingerbread house always looks amazing, that's why no one wants to eat it before Christmas, so we have it as dessert after Christmas Dinner.

Christmas Eve

Different than many other countries we unwrap our presents in the evening of Christmas Eve, the 24th of December. Before that we all go to church together to see a nativity play, later we have dinner with my grandparents. There are two types of Germans: There are some that have a huge Christmas Dinner before they start unwrapping their presents, the other ones have potato salad and sausages as Dinner. 

We're the second type of Germans and I defenetly prefer this tradition, eating salad is much faster than eating a whole Christmas Dinner, so you can start unwrapping your presents earlier!

After finishing dinner we go into the living room, then we see the Christmas Tree with all its fairy lights turned on for the first time. We stand around the Christmas Tree and sing a Christmas song together, usually it's a traditional song like "Oh Christmas Tree". That's the time when my mum always starts crying, she's so emotional! Last Christmas was the first one I lived in Landau so I was really emotional about being home again so I joined in into her crying. 

Then it's time to unwrap the presents! We all sit on our sofa and it's my and my brothers task to choose a present. On each present is a small card with a name written on it and this person can unwrap his or her present. It's always really exciting because sometimes you have to wait really long till you can finally open one of your presents. 

The fact that we open the presents one after another causes that we sit there for hours. Some people may say that it's too long and it gets boring but we really enjoy spending time together at Christmas. 

Christmas Day

At Christmas Day we like to have a lie in, we don't need to open our presents so we're not as excited as most of you are and we don't want to get up too early. Usually we skip breakfast because my grandparents cook a huge Christmas Lunch and we want to eat lots of it. They live in the same house as my perents so we just need to go downstairs.

We always have a "Sauerbraten", that's a piece of meat, usually beef, that is covered in vinegar and many spices. To be honest, it doesn't sound good but it's delicious, I promise! To the roast we always have potato dumplings and red cabbage. That's defenetly one of my favourite meals over the year!

After finishing the Christmas Lunch we go into our flat again to change our clothes. In the afternoon all relatives come to visit my grandparents so we want to wear a nice, festive outfit. We have cake and coffee togehter and I see some aunts and uncles just this time of the year, because they live far away from my hometown. 

This year my mum bakes my favourite cake ever, cappucino cake! 

For my brother and me it's also a tradition to go to a huge Christmas Party later that night. It's in a village next to us and we meet all of your friends there. My brother and I are really close so we don't mind to go to a party togehter, we even have the same friends! 

This Christmas

Of course, this Christmas we still have the same traditions and in one way everything will be like it always was. But also it'll be completely different to the other ones because my boyfriend is going to celebrate Christmas with us!

Maybe you already read it in another blogpost: He's English. So Everything will be different for him. Obviously all the different Christmas Traditions and the food but also the language. We're both really excited because he's going to meet my parents for the first time then as well.

I can't describe how happy I am to have such a brave boyfriend who decided to celebrate Christmas abroad with a family he doens't know yet. But I'm sure we'll have lots of fun, especially with my famliy's English! I know, mine isn't perfect but theirs is even worse.

What are your Christmas Traditions? I'd love to read about the different traditions in your country and also about your family traditions. 

I'll see you soon!

Monique