A German Christmas and New Year
Kyoko Canaway
CW: Mention of COVID-19
I decided not to come home for the Christmas holidays this year. At a time when laws on international travel can change overnight due to Covid-19 and with the 31st of December signalling Britain’s exit from the EU and thus the end of a straight-forward journey back into Germany, the thought of travel was simply too daunting. However, extremely luckily, this did not mean that I had to spend Christmas alone. A Scottish friend of mine happened to move to Berlin a year before my Year Abroad and as she was also unable to go home or spend time with family for Christmas, we decided to celebrate together. Although this for us meant mince pies and a big meal on the 25th, this was not the case for her German partner who, along with his two children, introduced me to some of the more German Christmas and New Year traditions. I perhaps shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that there was more to this than just Lebkuchen and Glühwein.
The first thing that struck me was that Christmas does not happen on Christmas Day in Germany. Although it is typical to still have a large family meal on the 25th, the real celebrations take place on the 24th. It is on our Christmas Eve that all the family gathers to open the presents that have been left, not by parents and family members, but by the Christkind. In Germany, children believe in the figure of the Christkind, literally the ‘Christ-child’, who comes unseen and secretly delivers the presents under the tree for them to open. Just like the figure of Father Christmas, children are warned not to try and spot the Christkind, since he will not come if he might be seen. Once the Christkind is safely out of sight, some families ring a small bell, supposedly the Christkind signalling that he has gone and that it is safe to enter the room with the tree and open the presents. Fulfilling the stereotype of the Germans’ love for potatoes and sausages, it is then traditional for many families to eat a meal of Kartoffelsalat or Wurstsalat. However, on Christmas day itself, many families cook a much larger meal, typically of turkey, goose, or duck, as is the case for many British families. After these first two days of Christmas celebrations comes the 26th, which in German is called ‘der zweite Weinachtsfeiertag’ (‘the second day of Christmas celebrations’). The German Christmas period is therefore stretched out over a full three days of festivities, with presents on the 24th, an extravagant meal on the 25th and then time to recover and relax with family on the 26th. Needless to say, I made the most of each of these different days of celebrations!
Image: Kyoko Canaway
After these three days of Christmas, I was excited to see what a German New Year’s Eve, or Silvester, would bring. In the lead up to the end of the year, the German news had been filled with stories announcing and then reiterating a ban on the sale of fireworks as a measure to discourage large gatherings and prevent extra strain on hospitals due to firework related injuries. Almost every day, national television reminded us that fireworks were not to be sold or bought this year and this was often followed up by stories explaining the huge financial repercussions of this ban on the firework industry, which apparently makes 90% of its yearly income just in the lead up to the end of the year. The first time I saw the news, I didn’t pay that much attention to it – of course some people would want to buy fireworks for New Year’s and of course these end of year celebrations, like so many other celebrations this year, would have to be altered to adapt to the conditions of the pandemic. However, after hearing this same news item for a few days, it struck me as odd just how often it was appearing as a headline, and how emphatically this ban and its importance were reiterated every day. I therefore began to suspect that the Germans were much more attached to their fireworks than I had anticipated and that actually, this ban was a much more shattering blow to the Silvester celebrations than I had realised.
After talking with my friend’s partner and his children, I realised that my suspicions had been correct. Although they as a family traditionally only light sparklers (Wunderkerzen in German) and small Böller or firecrackers, they told me just how extreme the fireworks in Berlin usually were on New Year’s Eve. Shortly before midnight, everyone leaves the warmth of their homes to start preparing their fireworks, and at midnight the city apparently seems to explode. This is no organised firework display; they simply go off in the middle of the street or wherever enough space can be found to light them, firecrackers explode without warning and some are even thrown on to the balconies of houses or just generally lobbed in random directions. Someone else I spoke to had been so scared walking through Berlin on New Year’s Eve the year before, she compared the city to a warzone, simply because of the frequency and force of the explosions. Given how emphatic the news had been about the ban on fireworks, I wasn’t expecting to experience any of this at all. However, it turns out that Germans, or at least Berliners, simply can’t welcome in the New Year without an explosion. We exploded confetti canons out of the window to make up for the lack of Böller, but the family had also spent the day scouring the shops for any fireworks they could find, and amazingly had managed to procure four fireworks that were like a large-scale version of those sparkler-like candles that you sometimes get on birthday cakes. As well as these, the other inhabitants of Berlin had somehow got hold of enough fireworks to put on what was, in my eyes, an extremely impressive firework display, although the girls assured me that this was nothing compared to a normal year.
Fireworks in Berlin
Video: Kyoko Canaway
One final tradition that I found particularly amusing was the significance of the British sketch ‘Dinner for One’. This 20-minute comic sketch in English was first released in 1963 and shows the 90th birthday celebrations of Miss Sophie, who insists on hosting a birthday dinner, despite the fact that all her friends are already dead. Her butler James must therefore toast Miss Sophie on behalf of all the guests, drinking for each of them before every course of the meal, and becoming predictably drunk extremely quickly. This sketch is practically unknown in the UK and yet it has been broadcast on every New Year’s Eve in Germany and Austria since 1972. To me as a native English speaker, this sketch seems to be very much a relic of its own time and I was therefore baffled to see that it was such an integral part of the modern Silvester celebrations. Families watch it with no German subtitles, simply taking in the British accents and the British humour, and it is broadcast multiple times over the 31st of December to ensure that everyone can relive Miss Sophie’s 90th birthday at least once in the lead up to the New Year. It seems strange that this 1960s British relic has become such a deeply ingrained part of German cultural consciousness, and yet this tradition seems to be as indispensable to Silvester as the chaotic firework displays in the street.
Abendbrot
Image: Kyoko Canaway
During my stay in Berlin, I was not only introduced to some traditions of the German holiday season, but I was also able to properly immerse myself in a typically German way of life for the first time. Although many would expect this cultural immersion to be a given from the start of the Year Abroad, the restrictions due to Covid meant that I was only able experience some of Germany’s cultural highlights four months after I had moved to Germany. One thing that I was introduced to and that will now be a staple of my home-cooking was Maultaschen, an easy, student-meal type dinner that is Germany’s answer to ravioli. I also ate Abendbrot, a simple meal of bread, cold meats and cheese and was able to just have a chat in German, sit and watch a film in German and play some German games. These are all such normal aspects of daily social interaction, and yet moving abroad during a pandemic has meant that my time in Berlin over Christmas was not merely an exceptional holiday season for me, but was also exceptional within the context of my Year Abroad, simply because I was able to have basic levels of contact with people who are actually from Germany, an experience that I had missed up until Christmas and that was definitely one good thing to come from not going home for the holidays.
I have been extremely fortunate to have gained this insight into the cultural life of the country I have moved to, and yet, as my experiences up until December have shown me, this is something that we cannot assume has been the case for all students abroad this year. Naturally, some will have been lucky, and will have fallen into friendship groups or families that have enabled this cultural immersion, whilst others will not have been able to see so much as a glimpse of what life is truly like in their host country and may not even have been able to spend much time abroad at all. Attempting to live in a foreign country at any time can be difficult, but I think it is fair to say that doing so this year has been a particularly challenging experience. While my thoughts go out to all those currently on their Years Abroad, whether they be at home or in another country, I would also like to look ahead to a time when, hopefully, things have returned to a recognisable normality. As a student whose experience has been limited by the Covid restrictions across the globe, I hope that future Year Abroad students will make the most of their years, not by viewing it as the next step in the academic process towards fluency and the best possible grades at the end of fourth year, but by setting out to truly immerse themselves in a new culture, forging new friendships and creating new experiences, something that, in my opinion at least, is the main thing to be gained from a Year Abroad.