Christmas in Austria

Much like the Czech Republic, Austria doesn’t celebrate Christmas with Father Christmas, instead they have a flying baby jesus called Christkind.

Elke was explaining that the traditional festivities are also very different. The celebrations happen on the 24th of December: after lunch one of the parents takes the children out while the other puts up the christmas tree and presents, the children come back and some small bell is rung. The children dash into the room to try to get a glimpse of the Christkind creating chaos. The presents are unwrapped and then its time for dinner and bed. Madness! And to think our Christmases are always mayhem… We actually had quite an entertaining discussion on the ideal festivities. As Raphael is still so young, they have time to decide what works best :)

On Christmas Eve we had a meal just the four of us and Rafael, a very untraditional one! René made a Jewish main course which evolved and ended up with cream in it so not Kosher at all. We also had rosemary roasted potatoes and delicious herby vegitables. Oh and delicious Austrian wine of course :)

After dinner Elke lit the candles on the tree. Actual real candles! So the traditional mums also have to worry about the crazy hyped up kids burning the house down in their angst to see Christkind! The looked beautiful, but I think I’m way too paranoid to handle fire in trees in houses! not to mention the sparkers that where lit in it too! They looked super cool!

The following day René’s family came for lunch, we had Schnitzel! It was so much more laid back than Christmas at home! Why do we spend all day cooking? Well, it does taste good ;) in the evening, once all the family where gone we had chestnuts with red wine and watched a film.