Holiday Traditions in Hannover & Germany Anticipate DOMOTEX 2010!
Season's Greetings and Happy Holidays! Donna Hyland, who wrote about Navajo Textile Weavers demonstrating their rug art at Domotex, shares a few holiday traditions famous in Germany and Hannover. We hope they get you in the mood for the Holiday Season as well as for DOMOTEX 2010!
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In German families, for about two weeks before Christmas the room where the tree will be (and usually the focus of the house for holiday celebration) is locked so children can not enter. As German homes have a lot of interior doors (actually for heat conservation as well as for privacy), it’s common to have to go through a doorway into the kitchen, living room, dining room, etc.
In that room is where all the preparations for Christmas are going on; the parents put up the tree and decorate it. There is usually a glass pickle hidden on the tree; the first child to find it receives a small extra gift. On Christmas Eve, a festive dinner is prepared and the door is ceremoniously unlocked/opened for the sparkling lights and ornaments to be observed. Afterwards the children are hurried off to bed to sleep in anticipation of the arrival during the night of Saint Nicholas and his gifts.
Beginning around the first week of December, another wonderful Christmas tradition takes place in towns all over Germany known as Kris Kringle Markt, all festively lighted and well attended at night. At the Christmas market you’ll find beautiful glass and wooden ornaments, wax angels (most famous from Nuremburg), fancy candies, food specialties and very nice hand made wooden toys, especially marionettes and hand puppets. The famed nut crackers represented in all kinds of characters are made near Hannover; visitors can take a tour.
Hannover is known for its cookies (Bahlsen world headquarters are in Hannover). Everyone simply must try the gingered cookies, pfefferneuse, and chocolate rolled wafers, these are spectacular and come in standard packaging as well as tins. Special Christmas production emphasizes the holiday. In the 1990s, when I first started going to Domotex, I would bring home a box full of different Bahlsen cookies, purchased at the factory. Then one year I realized the cookies could be bought at the Shop-Rite in my own New Jersey town!
Beginning the first week of January you will encounter the very fragrant remains of cut trees mounded for recycling at the street squares where subway stops are located. Of all the times I’ve gone to Hannover (54 to be exact but that’s for other exhibitions as well), the pine smell is a fond remembrance of Domotex time.
Makes me want to jump right on that plane and head to Germany today! Not too long now for DOMOTEX 2010!
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Thank you, Donna!
From all of us at DOMOTEX, we wish you very Happy Holidays, Frohe Weihnatchten, and best wishes for 2010!
We also can't wait to see you in Hannover for DOMOTEX 2010.
~ Rita
Rita Dommermuth, Hannover Fairs USA
rita@hfusa.com - Tel: 562-901-9191
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