Starting from the middle of November, London has entered the holiday season with lights and decorations on the streets. In my Austria Today class, we had an interesting conversation about advent seasons in Austria, so I want to share what I learned about Austrian advent customs in this post.
Austrian Christmas tradition begins with receiving the Advent calendar. Austrian, as well as British children, are given an advent calendar at the end of November. It is a special countdown calendar with tiny boxes and the date on it. You will open one box of the date of December every day. There are usually different shapes of chocolates in each box, so you basically get a little treat everyday until Christmas. Other fancy Advent calendars might have toys or skin care and make-ups for adults. I believe Americans have the same tradition as well. When I lived with my host family in the United States, they would get me an advent calendar as well. It is always exciting for me to open the small box everyday because it reminds me it is getting closer and closer to Christmas ( which means winter break 🙂 ).
A unique tradition that Austrians have is the Krampus and Nickolaus. This is a centuries-old Austrian Christmas tradition. Krampus, visits children on December 4th, is a horned figure who “punishes” misbehaved children during the Christmas season with a bag of nuts, clementines, and chocolate. In contrast, Saint Nicholas will go to the children’s houses on December 6th to reward well-behaved ones with gifts exact the same as the one that Krampus gives. Because Krampus is such a scary demonic creature, there has been a public debate in Austria in modern times about whether Krampus is appropriate for children. The following is a link (open in a new tab) of a Krampus parade in case you wonder how they look like :
In my opinion, many traditions are getting off the stage nowadays, it is necessary to keep these old traditions for it preserves one’s culture. Even though the children look scared by the Krampus in the video, the adults seemed like they enjoyed it very much. In China, we don’t even have Christmas. However, businesses seek a fortune out of it and we start to celebrate this holiday as well. We even developed our own tradition that we will eat an apple on Christmas’ eve because Christmas eve translated in Chinese rhymes with an apple in Chinese.
What about you? Do you have any unique Christmas traditions that you want to share with me?