We're All a Little Austrian at Christmas

Christmas in Vienna starts early. I arrived in the city on Halloween, and a week later, the Viennese were lacing up their ice skates to go skating at the Radhausplatz market. A week after that, they turned on the Christmas lights decorating the streets around St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Thanksgiving isn’t a thing in Austria, so there is no reason to wait. Plus, the Christmas markets—called Christkindlmarkt in Austria—have got to be cash cows for the city and for the vendors. Where else am I going to pay zehn euro vierzig (€10.40) for a mug of hot wine? 

I exaggerate. It’s only fünf euro vierzig (€5.40) if you return the mug—you put down fünf (5) as a deposit for the cute mug that says “Christmas in Vienna” or that is shaped like a stocking. I recommend collecting abandoned mugs from the tables and returning them yourself for a crisp five-euro note each—it will cover the cost of your glühwein and maybe a sausage. 

Glühwein is what you actually get in the mug, and just calling it hot wine isn’t exactly fair. Glühwein means "glow wine" because the warmth, the alcohol, and the spices make you glow from the inside out! Isn't that sweet! It’s just mulled wine, red wine with winter spices and maybe some orange juice and rum thrown in. It’s a bit of an acquired taste, but once you acquire it, you love it, you drink a lot of it, and you end up with red-stained teeth. You could also get punch—hot orange or apple juice with spices and a lot of liquor—if you’re lame. Or, if you’re even lamer, you could get kinderpunsch, which doesn’t have alcohol in it. (That doesn’t make you lame, sorry, I won’t make fun of people for not drinking.)

Christmas markets are all over Vienna—all over Austria actually—and they’re open all day, every day. They’re little villages, with each vendor set up in a little wooden hut decorated with tinsel, evergreen, and twinkling lights. The huts are shaped kind of like the stable in nativity scenes. In November, it gets dark around 4:30pm, and the Christmas markets are little islands of light and warmth in the dark city. There are usually police vans and rats eating leftover sausage buns on the perimeter too, but if you stay in the middle and drink enough alcohol, you’ll feel nothing but warm and festive!

Christmas lights around Stephansplatz

Most people come to Christmas markets to eat and drink...sausage, spirals of fried potatoes, doughnuts. Austrian doughnuts are called krapfen—think a Bavarian cream-type doughnut filled with apricot jam. Legally, to call a krapfen a krapfen, it must be filled with apricot jam. If it’s not, you have to specify what it’s filled with in the name. Doughnuts are a very serious matter.

I usually went the healthier route: roasted chestnuts and glühwein. There are antioxidants in the glühwein (red wine!) and chestnuts are just nuts. Plus, you burn calories just peeling chestnuts because you have to pry them out of their blackened shell before you can actually eat them. And then you’re left with the pieces of burnt shell, which you feel bad about flicking on the ground, even though it’s clearly not littering because the shells are obviously biodegradable. Eating chestnuts is hard work. But a freshly roasted chestnut is tender, buttery, and slightly sweet.

Christmas in Salzburg

So, most people are there for the food. But most of the Christmas market stalls don’t sell food. They sell random things: knitted hats and scarves, pottery, little wooden carvings. Some of it is mass produced, but some of it is quite nice. Tristan bought a tiny wooden nativity scene.

Christmas markets—and the general embracing of Christmassy things—is common across all of central Europe, wherever the German influence is strong. You can find glühwein and doughnuts in Bratislava, Munich, Prague, Strasbourg and Salzburg. The rest of Europe tries to imitate German Christmas markets too but I’m now an insufferable Christmas snob who enjoys reminding people that these aren’t real Christmas markets (which is dumb…it’s Christmas and they’re markets, of course they’re real Christmas markets).

You can buy "vin chaud" on the street in Paris, but it’s really glühwein. I spotted empty bottles like the kind you buy for ten euro at a Hofer in suburban Vienna, but when I announced this with glee to my friend Renata, she ignored me and paid five euro for a small paper cup with a tiny piece of orange floating in the wine. In Florence, they sell apple strudel and bratwurst in front of Santa Croce.

It’s not surprising that everybody wants to be Austrian or German at Christmas. You might not know it, but even Americans actually celebrate Christmas in a very German way, because a lot of “traditional” Christmas traditions are originally German. Christmas trees? German. “Silent Night?” Written in Salzburg. Advent calendars? German. Gingerbread? Gingerbread houses? German. Candy canes? German.

American Christmas also has a good bit of English influence (they gave us Christmas cards and fruitcake), and down here in Texas, we also celebrate with a few Latin American traditions, like luminarios and tamales. Poinsettias are also originally from central America. Christmas lights, department-store Santas, and eggnog are also apparently uniquely American. But at Christmas, we’re all a little bit österreichisch.