A little cultural treat

hamburger,
you are very welcome--only, these Stollen have to "ripe". Today we have Striezel- white sweet yeast bread.
Today I took out the Nativity Scene, which will be build up in school during Advent- each day a little figure or plant will be added.
My own kids ( not little anymore) started baking and building the Lebkuchenhaus ( gingerbread house) as presents for some smaller children for Nikolaus.
It is nice to see that they still like the old custom.

My favourite bakery in my native town used a 'special room' for the riping of the Stollen: they were stored in the same cellar where they kept the apples.

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A nice poster which I have in my digital collection, for christmas exhibition in Berlin, 1913

walter : the beautiful poster from the 1913 berlin exhibition - unfortunately - reminded me of the drawings heinrich zille made at about that time (the good old days of emporor wilhelm) about the less fortunate people living in berlin . i guess they must have represented a rather large number among the inhabitants of berlin - judging by the number of scetches he made.
i've got three books of zille's scetches and his little stories that go with them and every now and then, i look through them to enjoy "the good old days" . hbg

Back to (pre-) christmas culture, since it's the 1st of December today:




History of the Advent Calendar

"This page from a German advent calendar company presents information on the origins of advent calendars and a short history of their evolution from simple chalk lines marking off the days in December until Christmas to paper calendars with windows. The online Advent Calendar Museum provides photographs of calendars from the 1940s through 1960s. Also includes a brief history of the Sellmer Company in Stuttgart and an online tour of calendar production."

link to an interactive advent calendar at beliefnet

http://www.beliefnet.com/index/index_10055.html

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billybear's advent calendar

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coolsite of the day advent calendar

(it really is cooooooool) <the blog it comes from visual-voice>

BBC interactive advent calendar

webcam munich

Ah, I wish I could be there on the Marienplatz and drink
some Gluehwein and eat roasted nuts. Well, at least we're
lighting our Advent candle every night.

cultural treat
cj : in hamburg a well known drink during the winter time was/is EISBRECHER (engl. icebreaker) . it refers to the special tugboats breaking the ice on the river elbe, but more so to the drink that is a mixture of : heated redwine, rum, sugar and perhaps a little lemon - NO WATER ! if the tugboat can't make it thrrough the ice, this drink will surely do it .
as i was looking for eisbrecher, i came across a website for a german "alcohol distributor " - gosh, i never saw anything like that in germany while living there - how the times change.
...select your poison...

Advent calender at the Rathaus in Wien.



I can almost taste the roasted chestnuts and jagatee.

hamburger: Eisbrecher sounds like a stiff drink for some
serious drinkers

jagatee or Jaegertee is also quite potent Sublime. Did you
like Vienna?

ahhhh roasted chestnuts

there are chestnuts in the grocery right now
I should get some and nuke 'em
not quite the same, but a decent substitute

Roasted chestnuts are excellent pocket warmers when it so cold as today.
The children and I went to one of the retirement homes today to sing Advent songs.
The next Advent highlight is Krampus and Saint Nikolaus.

How I miss Krampus

Unfortunately Saint Nikolaus doesn't come here on the 6th,
but my daughter's German class got one of the fathers
to do it (no Krampus though).

And our christmas tree is standing and fully decorated already - one less worry.

No Krampus in our school.
Last year we did the Krumpus figure- dried plums, peanuts, long red papertongue.
This year it will be a cork printing,
No Christmas tree yet- they are not sold here before 12/8.
And they are decorated as usual just before 12/24.
Maybe this year the kids will take over. Last year the little one (22 years old) still refused- he wanted the surprise. He wasn't lazy though, he prefered cleaning the house to decorating the tree. Kids!

I remember that ul. My mother always decorated on the 24th,
but here in the US it's customary to have the tree standing
in early december. I like it that way, as we can enjoy the
tree a lot longer and I have other things to do on the 24th - like last minute shopping and cooking.

I think in (most parts of) Europe a christmas tree still is a Christmas tree and not not an Advent tree or a holiday tree tree or something like that.

But since decorating homes outsite started some couple of years ago, some trees are now inside as well .... we might follow this way of changing our traditions and follow the American way of life as well.

(Besides me.)

Since I usually still spend Christmas Eve with the hamburgers, I don't put up a tree here at all. I just can't do it earlier than the 22nd or 23rd, and that seems silly if I'm leaving on the 23rd or 24th. I put up a decorated tree earlier one year <grimace>. It felt wrong.

When I was growing up, friends of the hamburgers had a room with french doors - and the tree was kept hidden in there until the reveal on the 24th. It was always so exciting waiting to see what would be behind that door. Their tree was no more wonderfully decorated than the hamburgers', but it had mystique.

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I bought some outdoor rope lights a couple of years ago. I think I'm going to put them around one of my little cedars in the backyard this year - it should look nice AND it'll help me see what the dogs are getting up to at night.

In most German families, there's still and even in these days a "christmas room": this room is shut on the 23th or early 24th, the tree is decorated (by the parents) in there and the presents are put around the tree.
The door isn't opened until the christkind arrives (usually before going to church, having dinner or some other fixed time).

At home - still today! - a get my stuff always on the same chair.

At school, a friend from a farm with an olde farmhouse had literally a christmas room: this room wasn't used on other occasions than at christmas. (And perhaps weddings, funerals, Schützenfest etc)

The same here in Austria.
Love to decorate the tree in the late evening of the 23th.
Kind of really getting in the right mood.
24th lunch time it really gets quiet, shops are closed and the traffic is all gone.
Just waiting for the tone of Christkind's bell.

I know several people though who will light the candles and see their presents in the early hours of Christmas Day.

The tree will stay till 1/5 or even till 2/2.