Christmas in Austria

Contemporary Review, Dec, 1993 by James Munson

AN Austrian Christmas conjures up a world filled with Drosselmeyer, Clara and her nutcracker prince, with fir-trees and new fallen snow, with Vanillekipferln and Santa Kloses. In truth, Christmas in this gentlest of German-speaking nations is a month's celebration rich in ancient peasant customs, a country holiday, a heilige Weihnacht.

Traditionally the season begins on December 6, St. Nikolaus' day when many villages and cities have public processions in honour of the patron saint of children. In Innsbruck St. Nikolaus' procession winds its way past candle-lit windows, giving sweets and fruit to children along the way and ends in the square before the city's famous Golden Roof from beneath whose balcony the ~bishop saint' addresses the crowd below. Just as English children traditionally hung up stockings, young Austrians put their shoes in the window, hoping for presents. It is surprising that in such a small country the saint has so many names: he is normally Nikolaus but in the eastern part of Austria he is Nikolo, Niglo or even Miglo while in the Tirol and the Vorarlberg he answers to Santaklos or even Klos, to those who know him well. Normally, as befits this most Catholic country, St. Nikolaus is a celibate but in the provinces of Lower Austria and Styria he is married. Unfortunately for him, his wife, Nikolofrau, is known as something of a termigant--at least to some.

Even worse than Nikolofrau is the malignant Krampus, a masked and rather nasty piece of work who accompanies St. Nikolaus to pick up naughty children whom he places in his rucksack or Buckelkraxn in transit for a place far hotter than Austria in December. At least that is the theory: in practice St. Nikolaus protects Austrian children, as is his duty, from the devilish fate prepared for them. In the village of Rauris, some thirty miles south of Salzburg, St. Nikolaus' day is ushered in the night before by a group of young men known as Schiachperchten who parade round the village. They are dressed in ragged clothes and straw shoes, wear two-foot high ugly peaked masks (the Schiachperchten) and caps like the Spanish penitents during Lent and carry brooms, scissors and a large basket. Their object seems to be two-fold, to frighten winter away and, like Krampus with his sack, to collect bad children.

For some, Christmas begins two days earlier on the 4th, St. Barbara's day, when a ~Barbara twig' is cut from a cherry tree and placed in a vase of water. If it blooms before Christmas Eve the family will see a marriage in the year to come.

As everywhere else, Christmas revolves round children. On Advent Sunday the Advent Calendar is brought out. Indeed, it is claimed as an Austrian creation. If legend is to be believed, an Austrian mother attached twenty-four pieces of cake to cardboard, one piece to be eaten each day. (The legend says nothing about the quality of the twenty-fourth piece.) The little boy grew up, established a printing house and, in 1903, began issuing ~Advent Calendars' with pictures replacing his mother's cake. Children wishing to write to Father Christmas are given an address by the Austrian Post Office and all letters, with an s.a.e., received between 28 November and 6 January will receive a reply from the post office in the village of Christkindl (the Christ-child), near Steyr, Upper Austria.

The decoration of Christmas trees is taken extremely seriously by Austrians: not for them the artificial tree and plastic baubles that have come in here. Ironically, the Christmas tree is no more native to Austria than to England. Just as it was introduced here from Protestant Germany by George III's consort, Queen Charlotte and popularised by Prince Albert, in Austria it was introduced by the wife of Archduke Karl, famous throughout Europe as the first general to defeat Napoleon. The Archduchess Henriette von Nassau-Weilburg's influence was such that in the years following her marriage in 1815 her ~Christmas-tree' became fashionable.

In the early nineteenth century Austrians decorated their trees with paper roses, fruit, cakes and nuts. Later, glass ornaments were added but in recent years people seem to be returning to earlier customs. Although electric lights have made some in-roads, all my Austrian friends assured me that they still used small candles -- kleine Kerzen. Many places have special Christmas markets -- in Salzburg it is the Christkindlmarkt which opens in front of the Cathedral on 25 November with fanfares and a carol service. In Innsbruck there is the Tiroler Heimatwerk on the Meranerstrasse where you can buy, at a price, the world famous handcarved wooden decorations for which the Tyrol is famous. In Vienna there is a good market near the Maria Hilfer Strasse, Vienna's Oxford Street. It is actually in the Spittelberg where, it is said, Mozart used to play skittles. The main market is in front of the Rathaus or Town Hall on the Ringstrasse and it is here you will find Vienna's Christmas Tree, given by the eight provincial states or Lander to the capital.