Signs of Weihnachten: Starting the Countdown

This year the real countdown to Weihnachten started on November 28, the 4th Sunday before Christmas. The custom is to set up a wreath with four candles. Each Sunday leading up to Christmas, a new candle is lit. This picture was taken last Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent.

This is also the week-end that the house exteriors were decorated. Since this is a neighborhood with a lot of apartment buildings, mostly this involved placing lights in the windows. But some people do go a bit further that that. But by comparison to the US, the decorations are pretty tame.

December 1 begins another count down. That is for the advents calendar. Typical Advents calendars involve a narrow cardboard box that can be hung on a wall. There are 24 numbered doors in the box. Each day, one of the doors are opened to reveal a treat. Once all the doors are opened, it is Christmas Eve.

Our Advents calendar this year is a little different. We slide out a piece of marzipan each day from the bottom, revealing a new fact about Weihnachten printed on the inside of the box. And, oh yeah, leaving us with a piece of marzipan to enjoy.

December 6 was Saint Nicholas Day. Saint Nicholas lived during the 3rd century in present day Turkey. A child of wealthy parents who died while Saint Nicholas was still quite young, he used his wealth in secret gift-giving to deserving people. So today, kids in Germany wake up on December 6th to find small gifts (typically sweets) at their front door. Actually not just kids find gifts. People will door small gifts at the door of friends that have helped them through the year. We actually took a Saint Nicholas run the evening of December 5th to drop off some bags of cookies at the door of 3 such friends.