Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas celebration and are enjoying the last few days of 2013.
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| Greetings from N - (c) MJT |
I am writing this post in order to share our Christmas experience in
Berlin, the traditions that we have formed leading up to Christmas and
for prosperity. Ironically we had some difficulty getting into the
Christmas spirit this year, but we managed to put on our own ex-pat
Christmas dinner regardless.
So the first task for
putting us in the Christmas mood was to set up the Christmas Tree (O
Tannenbaum) and decorations at the beginning of December. This is one of
our traditions rather than common practice in Germany of decorating the tree as late as 24.12.
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| Weihnachtsbaum - (c) MJT |
For a start, unlike most Berliners, we do not have a REAL tree. An assortment of Tannenbaum can be purchased on the streets, florists, supermarkets and pop-up tree yards. Our tree is plastic and is stored in the cellar for most of the year.
This year however we finally were organised in advance enough to purchase an advent wreath before the first advent, and the smell of fresh fir leaves are a very nice aroma of Christmas.
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| Advent wreath and pyramid - (c) MJT |
Something that has become quite a tradition for us is to visit the Jagdschloss Grunewald Christmas Market, which only opens for one weekend at the beginning of December. The hunting lodge castle is an half hour walk through the forest from the train station, but well worth it - plus N enjoys socializing with fellow canines.
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| berlin-grunewald-schloss-weihnachtsmarkt |
Our favourite Christmas Markets include Gendarmenmarkt (in front of the Konzerthaus Berlin), Lucia Weihnachtsmarkt at the Kulturbrauerei, Opernpalais (near the Staatsoper), Alexanderplatz around the fountain of Neptune and Charlottenburg Palace.
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| www.gendarmenmarktberlin.de |
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| http://lucia-weihnachtsmarkt.de |
I believe it is important to remember the true meaning of Christmas and I find it quite irritating when people or institutions try to make Christmas politically correct, out of fear of offending people of non-Christian beliefs. It is Christ's Mass! Ergo I have endeavoured for a number of years now to attend midnight mass, and this year I felt particularly spiritually uplifted for doing so.
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| (c) MJT |
For the past three years we have attended midnight mass in the Berliner Dom on Heiligabend (Christmas Eve). This is also the most important day for celebrations in Germany - 24.12 is the public holiday!! There is something extra special I find, attending a service at Midnight to a packed Cathedral.
And then after returning home from Midnight Mass we opened presents and skyped relatives back in Australia (around 2-3am) before waking up ready for Christmas Lunch.
We invited 12 other ex-pats to our Christmas, so the table and living room was indeed full. But we managed to fit everyone around for the lunch/dinner, and E and I prepared Turkey Wellington (thanks to Jamie Oliver - cranberries in the middle of the turkey breast, wrapped in pastry), Duck Orange (thanks to Lafayette), E's Tofu/Apricot Vegetarian Stuffing, Salmon steaks also wrapped in Pastry, plus the assortment of roast vegetables, salads, etc.
E also prepared the traditional brandy-soaked Christmas Pudding, which we of course set on fire, plus some Chocolate/Rasberry Torts.
We made our own Glühwein and had a wonderfully time celebrating Christmas Day with friends.
Who knows where we may be by next Christmas, but I feel like we have managed to build up some of our own traditions during our time in Berlin.
Best wishes for the coming new year!!
