Christmas Time

Christmas means a lot in the west. The way Germans celebrate the Christmas has its own flavor in it. In  German it is called as Weinachtfest. I remember my days in India when I used to go to church on December 25 of every year along with a couple of friends. Though being a born Hindu, it was a kind of fascination for me back then to celebrate a christian festival. Because we have been told in the school that kids gets presents from santa claus on that day.

Once I and my friend went to a church on December 25, I was in the primary school as far as I remember. We reached church and left our sandals in front of the tree (As it is a practice to enter a holy place without any shoes or chappals regardless of religion). My dad has bought me new sandals just two days before christmas as my old chappals were worn out. We entered the church and found a lot of crowd inside, as we could not find any place to sit down we didn't spend much time inside. To our disappointment neither did we find any presents on the Christmas tree nor did we find santa claus distributing sweets to the kids. We came out with a heavy heart only to find that my sandals has been stolen. What the heck! Till that point of time I was of the opinion that it happens only in temples. In most cases people who visits temple are more devotional to their footwear than the god in it. LOL. So, people make it a point to leave it in the care of beggars sitting in front of temple. It is apparent that the situation is same in India in any religious place unless there is a shoe keeping center in front of it. I had the same kind of experience in any religious place afterwards. Since then I always wear my old worn out footwear when ever I a visit a temple or any religious place. If I happened to wear a new or trendy footwear I leave it in the care of beggars sitting there. There are lots of beggars who live upon this money through their guarding business in front of religious places. Their business location depends on the days of the week. For example hanumanji temple on tuesday, sai baba temple on thursday, maha laxmi temple or mosques on fridays. They come early in the morning to reserve their places in front of temple. The more near they are more money they get. Festive occasion means a special time for them and their earnings could be more than three times than what they earn.

 Now coming to the topic I didn't dare to go to any churches here in Germany excepting visiting churches occasionally if it is a tourist attraction in the place I am visiting. The best part is even if I visit I don't need to leave my footwear outside the church like in India. whether it is christmas or not the church bells rings many times a day. People usually stay home starting from a day before christmas and after it. The roads are almost deserted and reminds you of apocalypse day. The stores are opened till afternoon 2 PM of a day before Christams. The stores are filled with Xmas cookies, chocolates, gifts and special offers starting from last week of October to beginning of January. The festive atmosphere is not at all visible on streets excepting in weinacht markts(german word for Xmas markets). No, horn sounds, vehicle sounds no shouting of street vendors about their best flowers and vegetables, not so much of crowd(you will have enough space to move freely in the streets) No hulchul at all. In weinachtmarkt one can find all sorts of things that exists in a typical carnival plus some other christams specials like gluewine(a kind of hot wine with speices) and some german specials like currywurst(hot dogs) and others. Children and non alcoholics settle down with kinder Punsch, a non alcoholic alternative made from crane berries.

Paderborn weinacht markt

Bavarian dress code

I have never celebrated Xmas with any christian family earlier in India. Though one of my cousin is married to a christian. They celebrate it the Indian way, the usual prayers are followed by non vegetarian lunch followed by prayers again. During my first year of my stay here I was invited by a Indian family who have been living here for the last 15 years. They were both professors in linguistics. It was a nice get together, we talked about random things and the German culture followed by christams presents. All in all it went well. They gave us enough motivation and tips to survive in Germany. I wanted to get a taste of how German Christams on the streets. So, I went to Xmas market with few German friends. I observed that Germans like to celebrate it in crowds, The most common scene on the streets is the gatherings of people singing German songs with a beer or glue wine in their hands. The songs may sound a bit difficult if one is not comfortable with German language. I tried to join them in their street choir but in vein. Last year I have been to Weinachtmarkt with my Indian friends. We were like a herd. I could not really enjoy Xmas markt because of so many people in our group. I promise you will get some strange looks if you are moving in a herd with non German background(of course it is same in every country). Everyone has a varied interests. Nevertheless it was funny though. I soon realized that It is always better to go with at least few German friends to such places first to get to know the native culture and second obviously to avoid those unusual looks. If you are somewhere in the south in Bavaria you will come across people wearing Dindl(for women) and Lederhosen( for men) in the pubs Weinachtmarkts. I haven't been to other European countries during Xmas time. I guess it would be more interesting to know the Xmas trend with a local touch during Xmas time.