Christmas in the Erzgebirge

In the Erzgebirge, the festive season starts right after the Totensonntag (a day to commemorate the dead), when everybody puts up their Christmas decorations. My favourite item is the Schwibbogen (candle arch), which you can see in nearly every window. In the olden days, the Schwibbögen were made of metal and lit with normal candles, but today the wooden ones with electric candles are much more common. I even took a Schwibbogen with me to Northern Ireland when I spent my semester abroad there ;) 

Schwibbogen

For me, the most important day of Christmas is Christmas Eve. After a nice lie-in and breakfast, my grandparents put the turkey into the oven because it needs to roast quite a long time. For lunch we normally have soup, e.g. lentils or peas. In the afternoon, we drink tea or coffee and eat Christmas cookies and Stollen, which is a traditional Christmas cake filled with raisins, ground almonds and diced candied lemons and oranges. We also continue preparing our dinner. At 6pm, it is finally time to eat dinner. Every year we have turkey with green dumplings (made of cooked and raw potatoes), gravy and red cabbage. After that, my family and I exchange presents and watch some Christmas films. 

Turkey

Green Dumpling, Red Cabbage and Turkey

If you'd like to have a go at baking a Stollen, here is my favourite recipe :)

Ingredients

Stollen

500g	flour
300g	sugar
250g	butter
2	eggs
8g	vanilla sugar
15g	baking powder
250g	quark
250g	raisins
250g	ground almonds
100g	diced candiced lemons
100g	diced candiced oranges
5 drops	bitter almond oil

Instructions

1. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl.
2. Knead the dough until it feels smooth.
3. Shape the dough into an oval loaf and put it on a baking tray.
4. Heat the oven to 175°C and bake the loaf for 1 hour.
5. Brush the warm loaf with melted butter and dust it with powdered sugar.

Christmas in Brazil (Northeast Region)

In Brazil, we celebrate Christmas on the evening of December 24th. For us, Christmas is a very important holiday and it should be celebrated with our families. It represents a period of forgiveness and love.
The Christmas tree is placed in the living rooms and decorated a month in advance. We also have a special day to remove the ornaments from the tree, which we call 'Dia dos Reis' or the Day of Kings (on January 5th).

Our Christmas tree is always surrounded by gifts. The exchange of gifts is the most awaited moment in the evening. 

At midnight, we have dinner and the meal usually consists of: roasted Turkey with 'farofa' (flour fried in butter), white rice, salpicão, potatoes, meat or prawns ( depending on the size of the family).

The turkey with farofa

Salpicão

The exchange of gifts comes after dinner. Sometimes, we make a "Secret Santa" game, speccially when the families are too big. Instead of buying a gift for each member of the family, you are responsible for only one person. We usually draw a name a few weeks in advance and on the Christmas Eve, we exchange gifts. This year, we will not have "Secret Santa", so my suitcase is filled with presents.

As you can see by my suitcase, the exchange of gifts is very important.

As a Catholic country, most families watch the "Missa do Galo" or the Rooster´s Mass. This is the mass celebrated by the Vatican at midnight. However, due to time differences, the transmission in Brazil happens at around 4 or 5 a.m.

December 25th is holiday and most shops are closed. Families generally remain at home or go to church, and our lunch is the same as the Christmas dinner.

Unlike Germany, we do not have Christmas markets, so Christmas is mostly felt on the 24th. In the city, there are some Christmas decoration, such as lights or a big Christmas tree at the beach. The government also organises concerts or plays during the week (22nd - 27th of December).

Christmas tree in my city (João Pessoa)

As mentioned in the title, the description is mainly about the Northeast region. There are possibly differences between the regions and some influence from other cultures may be perceived (for instance, German and Italian culture in the South of Brazil).
I would like to wish you all an enjoyable festive season.

Frohe Weihnachten und ein glückliches neues Jahr!

Christmas in East Saxony

I was born in Bautzen – an Eastern German town in Saxony which is known for its excellent mustard – and grew up in this area, not far from the Polish and Czech borders. Since my parents still live there, I spend Christmas in the place of my childhood.

Saxony, especially the mountain region of the Erzgebirge, is famous for its Christmas decorations. My aunt and uncle, who live in Chemnitz, need a whole week to unpack, clean and arrange all of their decorative idems. My parents, however, prefer a simpler look and limit their decorations to candle arches, a Herrnhuter Stern (a star made from red or yellow paper and illuminated from within), smokemen (miniature wooden figures inside of which aromatic incense cones are burnt), a German Christmas pyramid and a Christmas tree.

This is a Herrnhuter Stern

I like to go to Christmas concerts in the time leading up to the 24^th of December. German choirs performing in churches are a fantastic sound experience, and beside intonating traditional Christmas songs they often surprise their guests with modern melodies, Jazz and Gospel music.

A choir rehearses in a church in Jena/ Thuringia

Of course I bake some Christmas cookies in December, especially German Lebkuchen. It is a lovely tradition, especially because the smell wafting through the house is encredible!

 

Homemade German Lebkuchen filled with jam and almond paste - hmm!

My family have never much adhered to tradition. Instead of eating Christmas cookies in the afternoon of Christmas Eve, I prepare a new desert every year. Many families in our area have a roast or specially spiced Christmas sausages (German Bratwurst!) for dinner on Christmas Eve, but we are not very fond of eating heavy food at a time when there is a general surplus of feasts, quite apart from having a vegetarian among our ranks. Thus we have developed a tradition of our own: we mostly eat fish and potato salad.

In the morning of Christmas Eve my father carries our Christmas tree into the house. It is arranged in the living room, then decorated with baubles, lights and wooden ornaments. Only when daylight fades do we switch on the fairy lights in our tree and go for a walk. Being atheists, we do not attend church service. Afterwards, we all receive beautifully wrapped presents under the Christmas tree. Since the year my parents told me that Father Christmas is a myth, I have been giving them presents as well.    

Welcome to our Intercultural Exchange blog that is supposed to be a lively exchange of cultural traditions and intercultural experiences between German and international students of TU Chemnitz. This blog serves as an information/discussion platform for students of the Master course "Project Management" during the winter term 2014/15. Please feel free to post, comment, share your intercultural knowledge, discuss your experiences in foreign countries or even your experiences with distinct cultures here in Germany. Please also keep in mind that this blog is nevertheless supposed to be not too informal, but rather more on the academic level. Have fun blogging your way through all sorts of cultures!