Episode 16 - Festivals and Holidays in Austria in Winter Part 2
Vienna Christmas Markets and Winter Traditions: Snow, Lights, and Festive Celebrations
2023-12-14 28 min
Description & Show Notes
This is an episode about festivals and holidays in autumn and winter in Austria. It is the second part of the episode and the focus is on the time before Christmas and Christmas in Vienna. The host, Susi Blümel, talks about the weather, traditions, and experiences related to these festivals and holidays. She also mentions other events such as Advent, St. Nicholas Day, and New Year's Eve. The episode includes a word list with translations and suggestions for learning German words related to the topic.
Austrian Winter Festivals: Christmas Markets, Snowy Days, and New Year's Celebrations
In this episode of the Better German podcast, Susi Blümel explores the varied festivals and holidays celebrated in Austria, specifically Vienna, from autumn through to New Year. She paints a vivid picture of the beloved Christmas markets in Vienna, filled with arts, traditional items, and a variety of food and drinks. Susi provides insight into the weather during this time, from the rarity of snow to the typical temperatures experienced, as well as sharing a personal experience of a romantic snowy day at a renowned Christmas market. She delves into the cultural and religious significance of the four Sundays before Christmas, known as Advent, discussing the traditional customs such as lighting candles on a wreath. Additionally, Susi offers an overview of other holidays and special days celebrated during this time, such as Niccolo and the significance of December 21st. The episode culminates with a delightful list of words in both German and English related to these traditions and holidays, encouraging listeners to join in and practice. So, let's get into the festive spirit and explore the enchanting traditions of autumn and winter in Austria with Susi Blumel.
Key Topics and Bullet Points
Primary Topic: Festivals and Holidays in Austria
- Christmas Markets in Vienna
- Locations and number of Christmas markets
- Offerings and attractions at the markets
- Traditional beverages and food
- Weather and ambiance at the markets
- Advent and Pre-Christmas Traditions
- Advent wreaths and candles
- Observance of the 4 Sundays before Christmas
- Fasting and preparation for the arrival of Jesus Christ
- Non-religious aspects of Advent; reflection on values and traditions
- December Holidays and Celebrations
- Saint Nicholas Day (Niccolo)
- Traditional gift-giving and treats
- Public holiday on 8th December and its significance
- Winter solstice and its cultural relevance
- Christmas and New Year's Eve
- Celebration of Christmas in Austria on the 24th and 25th December
- Family gatherings and traditions
- Typical Christmas meal traditions
- New Year's Eve celebrations and traditions, also known as Silvesta
- Significance of Days and Months
- December as the darkest month and the beginning of winter
- The transition from December to spring
- Traditional customs associated with the coldest months
- Language and Learning
- German language words and their English translations
- Suggested learning methods for language learners
- Podcast and Upcoming Episodes
- Promotional content for other podcast episodes
- Encouragement for audience engagement and feedback
The podcast episode covers a range of topics related to festivals and holidays in Austria, focusing on the traditions, cultural practices, and celebrations during autumn and winter in Vienna. It provides insights into the ambiance of Christmas markets, pre-Christmas preparations, specific holiday observances, cultural significance of days and months, language learning opportunities, and promotion of the podcast and its episodes.
Links
- PDF for this Episode - List of Words and Dates
- Episode 14 - Watching Movies with Subtitles to Learn German
- Episode 14 - Watching Movies with Subtitles to Learn German
- Interactive Movie Guide to help you find German movies with subtitles on your level.
- Episode 5 - Introduction to German articles
- Episode 5 - Introduction to German articles
Here you can get early access to the upcoming A1.1 (total beginner) German course.
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I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please subscribe and share the podcast.
I would love to stay in touch, so for news, new courses and books, subscribe to my newsletter.
Do let me know, which subjects you would like covered!
And watch out for the next episode - I publish a new one every Thursday.
Transcript
Welcome to the Better German podcast.
My name is Susi Blümel, and I will teach
you German and everything around the
language , the countries and the culture.
Welcome to the second part of the
episode about festivals and holidays
in autumn, winter in Austria, mainly
Australia, mainly Vienna, to be honest.
in this episode, I'm going to talk a
little bit about the Christmas markets.
In Vienna, what you can
expect weather wise.
And what you can expect to see on
these, Christmas markets actually,
like what is going on there?
a little bit about the weather.
And, the traditions in that time.
Up until new years, actually
a little bit after that.
And then at the end, you're going
to get a word list from me about.
Many of those words that I have
mentioned there and their translations.
And you can learn those words right there.
Until the end of November, all of the
Christmas markets in Vienna have opened.
We have about 15 Christmas markets in
Vienna, that's just the bigger ones.
You will find different booths
on all sorts of places, but the
bigger markets are about 15 and
some of them are very, very nice.
They have like arts and traditional
things that you would pretty much
only get on a Christmas market.
They have a lot of food you
can drink booze, of course.
The tradition is to drink basically hot
sweetened wine and and other things.
You have big Christmas trees
up, very nice lighting.
People sometimes ask me that, we
very rarely have snow in December.
So even though these Christmas
markets are nice, we usually
don't have snow around that time.
The temperatures of course they can be
very different, but the temperatures,
it's not warm, it could be quite windy.
Currently it's between 5 and 10
degrees during the day, and it
can go down to zero at night.
So this is degrees
Celsius, not Fahrenheit.
In case you were wondering, we use
Celsius in Austria and most of Europe.
Also about the weather.
It's ironic because I just said
that it's usually not cold.
And I recorded this episode
originally a few weeks ago.
And quite shortly after I
recorded it originally, we had
a big winter start in Vienna.
We haven't had such a big amount of snow.
in November, I think it was even
before the beginning of December, in
a long time, I really don't remember
when was the last time, so it can
happen, it can be snowy also around
that time, but it's not the rule.
So it's getting cool.
But usually it doesn't snow in December.
I've once had this super nice experience
of meeting with a very good friend who
was visiting from Australia, he used
to live in Austria, but then he had
already left for some years and we met.
He was in Vienna for one day and we
decided to meet on the Christmas market.
And just when we arrived, and we were
in one of the most famous, or if not the
most famous Christmas market in Austria.
It's right in in front of the the Viennese
Mayor's House, "das Rathaus" is the
word for it, for the mayor's house.
You have the Christmas market
there, but to the left and right
of it, there is a very nice park.
And this park is also lit up and
you even have the possibility
to go ice skating right there.
So anyway, we arrived there, and
then it started to snow and it was
beautiful, big, soft snow flakes.
Snowing can be very different, but
at that day they were just like in
the movie they were coming down.
I think I've only ever once, really
experienced this beautiful kind of snow.
It was very romantic.
However, to be very honest,
it's not the usual case.
So if you come to Vienna, be prepared
for beautiful sites, beautiful
lighting, very nice Christmas markets.
I would advise you to be careful with
the booze, not just for obvious reasons,
but also, it's sometimes extremely sweet.
And it's also standing
there for a long time.
So, yeah, I don't drink that too
much, even though it's very tasty.
Yes, but realize, depending on
where you come from, it's cold, even
though it's not usually going down to
zero degrees, it can be very windy.
Be prepared, bring your gloves,
bring a good coat, bring a good hat.
Good.
So the Christmas markets in Vienna by the
way are open until the 26th of December.
some continue to be a smaller version and
sell good luck charms for new year's Eve,
which is called Silvester in Austria.
However, before we jump into
Christmas and New Years the
four Sundays before Christmas.
So Christmas is being celebrated
or is celebrated in Austria
on the 24th of December.
So, actually it's from the
24th, to the 26th of December.
But probably the biggest thing is the
24th of December, which is Christmas Eve.
And we give our presents on Christmas Eve.
However, before the 24th.
the four Sundays before that are
what is called and the whole time
is called Advent, "der Advent"..
I'm not sure if that is a tradition
anywhere but in the German speaking
area, to be honest, I'm pretty sure it's
not a tradition in the United States.
Let me know if it's a
tradition in your country.
And, from a religious point of view,
it's a time where people are fasting
and they're preparing for the arrival
of Jesus Christ on the 24th of December.
I'm not a Catholic person and I didn't
really grow up Catholic, but still, Advent
for us is also for us, for our family,
and I think for many other families
in Austria, that maybe are not super
religious, but still feel connected to
tradition of Christmas, it's kind of a
time where you try first of all mnt let
buying of, christmas presents, rush,
craziness, completely overtake your life.
And it should be a time where people
like consider their values, consider what
is important for them in that part of
the tradition, which is also a Catholic
tradition, I think is a very nice one.
But, on the less, spiritual,
but more physical part of that
tradition, we have "Adventkränze".
So a "Kranz" is a wreath.
So an "Adventkranz" is
a wreath for "Advent".
"Advent" is the time, and it's.
It's the, it's basically
the time of the advent.
It's like the time when people
are expecting the return of Jesus.
And the wreath is made of the
branches of a fir tree or or a
spruce, or something like that.
So one of the trees that are
traditionally used also for Christmas
trees, and out of the branches of
the same tree, we also make wreaths,
that we put up before Christmas.
And there's one candle for all of the
four Sundays before Christmas and on
every Sunday you light one more candle.
So sometimes these Christmas wreaths,
in German, we call it "Adventskranz", in
English they call it Christmas wreath.
So every Sunday we light
one more of those candles.
That's why sometimes these candles have
four different lengths, by the way.
So, that's one of the things that
is happening before Christmas.
Now we're in December, okay.
The first "advent-Sunday", so der 1.
Adventsonntag is very often
in November, but this year it's
actually on the 3rd of December.
Because the fourth Adventsonntag, the
fourth Sunday of the advent, this
year is Christmas Eve, the 24th.
So anyways, so that's what many people
do not, not necessarily with a catholic
point of view, but, they do it.
of course there is also
Hannuka in that time.
there's still quite a few
Jewish families in Austria.
Technically, my family's part Jewish, but
the part of the family where I grew up, we
didn't really have, the Jewish traditions.
Okay, so what else do we have
And then on the 6th of
December, there is Niccolo.
That is probably something you can relate
to because it's actually the day of St.
Nicholas, which became in the
English speaking area Santa Claus.
So it's actually the commemorative day
of the Saint where Santa Claus, the
tradition of Santa Claus, is coming from.
And that was a.
holy man, a Bishop, actually, a Christian
Bishop, It was Nikolaus from Myra, and
he died somewhere between 350 or 360.
And he's a very famous holy man, and I
don't want to go into his story, but the
tradition of giving presence goes back
to him because he, that's the thing that
is being told, he used to take care of
particularly children that were in need.
And he lived in,
would-would be Turkey today.
So the 6th of December, this is actually
his day, and we have the Niccolo.
So by the way, this is also not a public
holiday, but it's a traditional thing
that kids get a little bag of things.
These are small things.
When I was a kid, we would get peanuts.
And,
tangerines.
And dried figs and dried prunes and
maybe some sweets, a little bit of
marzipan and a chocolate Niccolo,
like this guy in chocolate, and
some more chocolates, probably.
So that's what we would get, and
that's still pretty much the tradition
to make little bags of goodies, not
too unhealthy, I mean, Hey, there
are nuts in there and tangerines
and so on, to give to the children.
that's on the 6th of December.
And it's very nice.
On the 8th of December we have
a bank holiday, it's a Catholic
holiday and there is a whole set of
Catholic traditions connected to it.
Many people are just like
for them it's a day off.
However, what is special about that
day, is that on the 8th of December,
that's the only, day that I'm aware
of, that is technically a bank
holiday, so banks are closed, offices
are closed, but most shops are open.
That's so people can
do Christmas shopping.
And then, one other thing that
is kind of happening around that
time was on the 21st of December.
That's the day where we have the
shortest day light and the longest night.
So we have about 16 hours of
night and eight hours of day.
And that's the shortest and from that
day on, days are becoming longer.
So, december is not the coldest month.
The coldest months are actually January,
February, but it's the darkest month.
And then after that, the days are becoming
longer and when the days have become
longer, the sun is getting more and
more, and that's what starts the spring.
And also the 21st of December,
it's actually only the beginning,
the official beginning of winter.
So, autumn starts on the 21st of,
September, Usually up until the 21st
of September is pretty much summary.
Can be different, but
it's pretty much summer.
This year, I think it was even longer.
And then, maybe October usually
is kind of autumn and November.
I would very much consider already winter.
However, officially winter only
starts on the 21st of December.
And then we have Christmas from
the 24th to the 26th of December.
And, most people celebrate with their
families on the 24th of December.
This is very much a family feast.
Sometimes people maybe meet
friends as well, but traditionally
this is a family thing.
And up until like, I don't know,
20 years ago, there weren't
even any restaurants open.
So people only had the chance pretty
much to celebrate with their families.
Now restaurants do have open.
so we celebrated in our family and
then usually people have more parts
of the family and they can't celebrate
with all of them at the same time.
So usually on the 25th and the 26th,
they would go to the other parts of the
family, where they haven't been before,
for example, on the 24th of December, we
very often we would celebrate, just the
family, the immediate family, my parents,
my sister, once she was born, because
she's a few years younger than I am.
And, then on the 25th, We would go
to one of my grand parents and on
the 26th to the other grandparents.
Or sometimes one of the grandparents
was with us and we would go
visit the others on the 25th.
So for example, now, In my family.
It's usually my parents,
my father, my sister.
her partner and me on the 24th.
And then on the 25th, we
like me and my husband, we're
going to visit his, parents.
And it's similar for, many families.
To do it that way.
What do we eat?
There are different traditions
of what people eat on the 24th.
for many people, it's actually fish.
However, there are other there's even a
traditional, like quite a lot of people
that I know that would eat sausage.
Like traditional actually Wiener.
Vienna sausage.
I don't know, I haven't
experienced that personally.
We don't, for the past, I
don't know, 15 years or so.
In our family, we have
we've started to eat fondue.
And I think we will stick with it
because we would really like it.
And then the last thing, because I said,
I'm going to go on until the end of
the year is new year's Eve new year's
Eve in German is called Silvester.
that's the 31st.
Silvester is party time.
So, many people will go out,
have parties with their friends,
probably also with their families.
Most years, I have celebrated with
friends, or if I felt more for a
little quiet, I actually stayed
at home with my husband, but
that's not so much of a tradition.
I think usually the traditional thing is
to just go out and party, and to do that.
Actually this year, I'm going to
spend new year's Eve in the United
States and for sure, with a party.
So I'm looking forward to that.
And, before we end off this episode,
which has become quite long, but I'm
going to leave it like that, I am going
to give you a list of words and by the
way, there is a freebie for this episode.
That is a list of those
events that are just told you.
with the name, the translation to
English the date and maybe some notes.
And there is also a list of words
that I'm going to give to you
right now in German and in English,
so you have to translation,
that are connected to this all.
It's not all of the words.
That you could connect with this,
but there is quite a few of them.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
It was impromptu.
Let me know if you like it.
It's not only about Germany, even though
you get a lot of German words as well.
It's a little bit more
about the tradition.
I hope you find it interesting.
I will try to upload pictures, that
I have the, give you a little bit
more of an idea to my homepage.
So you can find the homepage,
of this episode, on better
german.info, And you will find
links to everything else in there.
You will find links to the freebie
there, which is the list of the words
that you can download the list of words
that are connected to this episodes.
It's a list of nouns.
And you will also find the links
to where you can see pictures.
I, because I just realized recording,
I hadn't planned to do this.
But now doing the recording for this
episode, I realized I should show
you some pictures, I should show
you some pictures of, of Vienna with
decorations and maybe some Christmas
market pictures and things like that.
So.
I'll try to do that as well.
I want to once more tell you about
episode number 14, and this is an
episode about how to learn German or
help you learn German or support your
German learning experience, by watching
movies or TV shows with subtitles.
This is something that
can be super entertaining.
and you will learn sort
of without noticing it.
You can do more or less around
this if you want to, but I highly
suggest to just have a go at it.
And there is a very cool freebie that
I'm very proud of, also being released,
when that episode is going live.
And it's an interactive guide.
There's all of the films that I'm
mentioning in this episode, and by
the way, I'm covering Netflix, Amazon.
Disney plus and YouTube and I'm
giving you a few suggestions for
every one of those platforms.
However, in the interactive
guide, you will find way more
and I keep adding things to them.
So all of these platforms have now
original German movies with subtitles
and there's very different Genres.
You will find everything, from comedies
to romantic movies, to documentaries,
like current interesting documentaries.
geography documentaries, science fiction.
I'm trying to cover as
many different things.
So everyone will find something
that is interesting in there.
And you will get my interactive
guide where you can look for level
that that I suggest is for, because
there's different levels of difficulty
and also the subtitles that are
available and where it is, and so on.
I'll explain this a little bit more in the
next episode, and I'll also give you all
of my tips, not just which movie to watch,
but also on what you can do to get the
most out of it and how you can incorporate
this very fun way of improving your
German or learning German into your life.
Okay, so let's get started.
I definitely suggest you to listen
to this word list with the PDF.
So download, go to that
homepage and download the PDF.
Because otherwise, it's
probably hard to follow.
So I'm just going to say the words one
time in German, and then in English,
if you want to practice these more than
I suggest to repeat it, and I suggest
you to use these words in sentences.
If you are coming into one of my courses,
there's courses coming up next year,
you can subscribe to my newsletter
and then you will be Informed once
they're coming up, but the courses
are coming up next year, and then
you will, of course learn all the
details of how to learn your words.
But you can also follow my podcast
and I'm giving you quite a few
tips on how to learn new words.
I'm saying the word in
English and the translation.
I encourage you to repeat it with me.
And if you want to actually learn
these words, then I encourage
you to play it back a couple
of times and keep repeating it.
And then practice it,
try to make sentences.
If you speak some German already, you
can try putting these into German.
If you don't speak any German at all,
you can even make English sentences
and just use that one word in German.
And then you will see that you will start
recognizing those words and it's a start.
Okay.
Here we go.
So repeat all of these words after me.
die Ernte harvest.
der Dank gratitude, thankfulness.
das Fest festival, party.
das Erntedankfest harvest festival.
feiern to celebrate.
die Feier celebration.
die Familienfeier family celebration.
die Neutralität neutrality.
das Allerheiligen holiday on 1st
Nov (all hallow) der September
September.
der Oktober October.
der November
November.
der Dezember December.
die Gans goose
das Gansl goose
das Rotkraut red cabbage
das Blaukraut red cabbage
der Knödel dumpling
die Kartoffel potatoe die Semmel
roll little small white bread
der Kartoffelknödel potatoe dumpling
der Semmelknödel dumpling
made from white bread
der Ball ball, formal party
die Ballsaison ball season
der Staatsvertrag
State treaty
das Dirndl Austrian
traditional dress also, girl
der Fasching carnival
die Laterne lantern
die Zeitumstellung changing of the clocks
das Weihnachten Christmas
der Weihnachtsmarkt Christmas market
das
Christkind baby Jesus
der Christkindlmarkt Christmas market
das Geschenk present
die Weihnachtsbeleuchtung
Christmas lighting
der Nikolo St Niklaus.
Okay.
So these were all the words.
If you haven't done, go and download
your PDF with this list, and you
will also find the list of all of the
events that I was mentioning in there.
By the way, if you haven't heard the
episode five of this podcast, which
is an introduction to articles, maybe
you're wondering why I would always
say "die Ernte" or "das whatever".
So I would always say the
article with the word.
In that episode, you will hear why,
because basically when you learn
German, you should always learn
the correct article with the words.
In there you get a little bit of
an introduction If you haven't
heard that episode, I definitely
suggested to listen to it.
It could clear up what are these
articles, what do they mean and
why do you have to learn them?
And are they just made up to
torture students of the German
language or what's up with them?
? If you have a one that, that maybe
that episode could help you as well.
Okay, so thank you very much
for listening to this episode.
It has turned out a little bit long.
I hope you still enjoyed it.
Let me know if you did.
And let me know what you want to know.
And I hope I'll hear you
soon and talk to you soon.
Bye-bye.