[Author’s Note: This entry was intended to be published on the 24th of December, Christmas Eve. It was not. Those responsible for this delay (the author’s bottle of scotch and his video games) have been sacked. This entry was completed with great expense and at the last minute with new assistance (a bag of coffee beans and hot water). We thank you for your understanding.]
Well, it’s that time of year, again. I hope that everyone who reads this is having a great holiday season, free from St. Stephen’s Day murders and the like. I’m going to be celebrating Christmas in Innsbruck with my family, but first we’re going to be spending time in Munich, Regensburg, and Salzburg. Blog entries for those days (the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd) will follow as I write them, and they’ll probably go up sometime after Christmas. This entry will go up on the 24th if I remember to post it; if not, then it will go up afterwards. Now, seeing as I’m writing this on a train (again. Funny how it seems I can only ever write this blog if I’m on a train or in train station), and there’s nothing really interesting going on (we’re waiting somewhere in the northern foothills of the Alps, delayed by the blizzard that is currently sweeping the land), I though I might beef up this post with a few observations and anecdotes on how Austrians celebrate Christmas.
Firstly, it’s important that you understand that Austria is (I believe) 65% Catholic and around 85% Christian, so there’s none of the American attempts at political correctness. You’ll see no “seasons’s greetings” or “happy holidays” in Innsbruck; rather, the shops will have signs reading “Frohe Weihnachten!” (Merry Christmas, in German), and every city or village has its own Christkindlmarkt (Christ Child Market. More on that later). There’s also no Santas, or elves, or reindeer, or any of that foolishness (explained by the Austrian belief that the Christ Child brings the presents on Christmas Eve). There’s the inevitable consumerism that you can’t escape anywhere that comes with the season: stores in the city’s shopping center have signs for “Das Merry-Xmas-Special” or “Das Christmas-Sale” (in keeping with the tradition of borrowing English words for advertisements, a trend which is inexplicably omnipresent in the German-speaking world).
For Austrians, the Christmas season begins on the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent, when the Christkindlmarkts open. Every city and village has its own Christkindlmarkt, usually located in the oldest part of town, populated by vendors who are either prepare everything they sell by themselves, or who are representatives of a bigger store (this latter being obviously more present in cities like Innsbruck). Every year they load brown wooden kiosks or booths onto rented trailers and set themselves up in a rented spot. In cities with larger Christkindlmarkts, it looks as though a small village of people living in curiously kitschy houses has suddenly invaded the city.
What’s for sale falls into three different categories (usually): decorations, clothing, and FOOD. This last cannot be understated: the number of food booths at the Innsbruck Christkindlmarkt makes up roughly half the number of total vendors (by my rough estimate). The food is, in Innsbruck’s case, traditional Austrian winter dishes and drinks. There are the meats: all kinds of sausage (bratwürst, krainerwürst, knackwürst, extrawürst made from leftover bits of animal, blutwürst made from reduced blood), speck (a Tirolian term encompassing any kind of meat which is dried, salted, smoked, or any combination of the three), and other less appealing dishes (baked brain, intestines stuffed with speck, bull’s testicles). There are the starches: knödel (the Austrian dumpling, served either in soup or by itself, and coming in a wonderment of varieties, most famously spinach, cheese, and speck); krapfen (the Austrian equivalent of a doughnut, but better); and kirchl (my personal favorite, a puffed pastry shaped like a bowl and topped with sauerkraut, mountain cranberry jam, or powdered sugar). To wash all this down, the vendors will be more than happy to sell you coffee, hot chocolate, punch, beer, wine, prosecco, or glühwein, a cousin of mulled wine made by heating wine in a cauldron with two clove-studded oranges, and then adding sugar, more cloves, cinnamon, tea, and perhaps a dram or two of the local moonshine. Not a drink for the weak-of-stomach!
Once you have stuffed yourself, there’s still another half of the Christkindlmarkt left. Here you can buy scarves, sweaters, hats, and mittens; slippers, jewelry, nativity scenes, and kitsch of all forms. Generally, these items are not as untrustworthy as one might expect, although this benefit comes with a corresponding price hike. Expect expense, but the stuff won’t fall apart on you the minute you leave the city.
After the first Sunday of Advent, the Christkindlmarkt infiltrates all available corners of the city, and Austrians settle down for the feast of St. Nicholas. The mythos surrounding Nicholas is a bit different than it is in America. Rather than being attended by Rupert, his chimney-sweep servant, Nicholaus comes to the cities of Austria attended by a horde of Krampuse. The Krampus is a demon which delivers the naughty boys and girls bundles of sticks on St. Nicholas day, and is one of the things that young Austrian children live in fear of (eat your dinner or the Krampus will get you!) On the 5th of December, there is a great procession from the Church of St. Nicholas in the northern part of Innsbruck to the Cathedral of St. Jacob in the city center. Afterwards, the Krampuse (young men dressed in furry, horned demon suits) run through the city, whacking bemused passers-by and bystanders with bundles of reeds or sticks. The next morning, all the children receive sweets, nuts, and oranges in their shoes (which they leave by their front door the night beforehand), and those few silly people who decided it would be a good idea to hit a Krampus back (guess what? It isn’t) nurse their well-deserved welts. The weekend closest to the feast of St. Nicholas, around 30,000 Italians cram themselves into buses and invade the city and the Christkindlmarkt, while sensible Austrians stay at home.
The Austrian house is much like the American one at Christmas-time. There is a tree (although the Austrians decorate theirs with candles rather than colored light bulbs, and generally don’t have pounds of ornaments decorating every available square inch of branch and needle), and the Austrians also decorate their houses (although their decorations would probably be considered humorless, spartan, and severely lacking in holiday spirit by most Americans. Do not expect to see a light display which requires several African nations to power, or inflatable figures waiting to be popped by a drunk youth with a BB gun). Altogether, I would say that Austrians approach Christmas with a more sensible and definitely more devout frame of mind than we Americans.
On Christmas Eve (known as Heiliger Abend, or Holy Evening), some Austrians go to mass, either around 8 o’clock or at midnight, but most of them go to mass on Christmas day (here called Christtag, Christ Day) after their children have shredded wrapping paper, opened gifts, and wallowed in pure and unadulterated joy for awhile. Most families have a huge dinner at around 1 in the afternoon, replete with roast ducks and geese, as well as other Austrian cuisine (knödel, speck, and so forth). Wine is drunk, food is eaten, and everyone retires to sleep soundly through the night.
Well, my train’s pulling in now. Regardless of whatever faith or non-faith you subscribe to, Dear Reader, I would enjoin you to meditate on this: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” Merry Christmas everyone!
-JA
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment