Weihnachtspyramide

December 10, 2008 By 1 Comment

The Weihnachtspyramide is a German Christmas decoration which originally came from the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains).

It is usually a round, wooden form with four or more candles.  These candles produce the heat that turns the fan-shaped top, which in turn rotates the platforms on which small figures stand.

These figures often depict Christmas scenes, but may also show figures typical to the Erzgebirge such as people from the woods and the mountains.

Their shapes gives them their name – the rotating platforms are wider at the bottom than at the top, ie. a pyramid form.  However they only aquired this name at the end of the 18th century, when Napoleon invaded Egypt and the news of the pyramids there reached Germany.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download a transcript

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Filed Under: Christmas, German Words Explained, Podcasts Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Rüdesheim Christmas Market

December 8, 2008 By Leave a Comment
The Christmas Market on the bank of the Rhine

The Christmas Market on the bank of the Rhine

This week the Monday Podcast visited the Christmas Market in Rüdesheim – also known as the “Christmas Market of Nations“.

Having visited Rüdesheim previously, I drove to a car park near the centre of the town, rather than using the signed car parks for the Christmas Market, which turned out to be futher away.

The market itself is located in the streets of the town centre and along the bank of the Rhine.  There are stalls with food and drink, but also handicraft stalls selling Christmas decorations and household goods.

The Obergasse in Rüdesheim

The Obergasse in Rüdesheim

Two particular highlights are the nativity scene in the market square and the Christkind who opens a door on the advent calendar each evening at 6pm.

The market has an international theme, so that many of the stalls sell traditional goods and dishes from their own countries.

Eating Churros - a Spanish speciality

Eating Churros – a Spanish speciality

Unfortunately it rained on and off throughout the day, but even so there were large numbers of people there – especially after it got dark.

To find out more, listen to the podcast:

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download the MP3 file | Subscribe to the podcast

Filed Under: Christmas, Monday Podcasts, Podcasts Tagged With: , , ,

Großes ß

December 7, 2008 By 2 Comments

It’s not often that I can say this, but I used a new letter of the alphabet for the first time this weekend.

Now it’s quite possible, that you are not even aware that the German alphabet has a new letter.  It is, in fact the Eszett (ß), which now has a capital equivalent.

Until now, the letter ß – which replaces ss or sz in a word  – has strictly speaking only be a lower case letter.  If you wrote a work in capital letters, you were expected to write it out in full.  eg. muß became MUSS.

Apparently there was a capital ß in East Germany for a time and it was even used on the cover of the East-German Duden dictionary for a number of years, but only in April of this year did it become formally recognised for the whole of Germany.  (For techies out there: it is part of ISO/IEC 10646, unicode U+1E9E)

So when I was writing my Christmas cards this weekend, I addressed them to “GROßBRITANNIEN” – hence writing my first capital ß.

Filed Under: Odd things Tagged With: ,

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