Yuletide in Europe

It’s Yuletide…literally, “the turning of the sun.” Since long before the birth of Jesus, Europe has celebrated the return of light as the corner is turned on winter, the shortest day is past, and the promise of renewed life is assured.

The December 25th party was called “Saturnalia” by ancient Romans. Like Christians built churches upon the sites of pagan temples, it just made sense for them to celebrate the birth of Jesus on the pagan festival of Saturnalia.

Whether you worship the sun or the son, life and love are the theme today across Europe (and Christendom). Norwegian farmers are lashing bundles of wheat to fence poles — a treat for the birds. And families light candles at the tombstones of lost loved ones to remember them as they enter and leave their village churches.

In Burgundy, families cook and eat Le Réveillon de Noël, the biggest feast of the year, while children gather an orange and a star-shaped cookie to put in their slippers — a thank you in advance to Père Noël for his kind generosity.

Throughout Paris today, Christmas carousels (manèges de Noël) are thrilling wide-eyed children visiting from the countryside. The Champs-Elysées is a forest of twinkling trees. Families are out lèche-vitrine(literally, “window-licking”) as department stores fill windows with festive animation and yuletide whimsy. Stores thoughtfully even put up little wooden stepladders for kids to get a full dose of the big-city Christmas wonder. And families with muffs and mittens are ice-skating 200 feet above ground at the holiday ice rink on the first level of the Eiffel Tower.

In Nürnberg, little Germans munching gingerbread (still warm out of the oven) are marveling at market square stalls well-stocked with Prune People — figurines made with a walnut head, four-fig body, and prune limbs, all dolled up in traditional folk costumes. But their highlight is an encounter with the angelic, teenage, real-life girl crowned the “Christkind.” As the children multiply around her, she raises her gilded arms and says softly, “If you are very, very gentle…you can touch my wings.”

In 1818, Franz Gruber first sang “Silent Night” in the village of Oberndorf near Salzburg. Today Oberndorf is a muddy mess as a traffic jam of tourist buses inundates the place. Each Christmas Eve, holiday-goers from Florida to Yokohama converge on the village in search of olde time charm…and find mostly just each other.

In Salzburg, the Gunners’ Club lines up atop the castle to fire off handheld miniature cannon to shoo away evil spirits. Meanwhile, parents shoo away the children so they can decorate the tree. (Tree lots here don’t even open until the week of Christmas, as buying and decorating is done just before the big day.) Later this evening, with a fantasy of gifts under the glittering tree lit by countless real candles, the door is opened, the children stampede in, and the “land of if” becomes the here and now.

And throughout England, little ones sing while mixing their Figgie pudding, cupcake-sized mince pies are cooked up (to be eaten one a day through the 12 days of Christmas — to ensure a happy 2008), and Wassail-ers are eating, drinking and being merry.

And in a few minutes, in our household, the extended family is swooping in as we celebrate Christmas in our American way. So…I’ll post this now and wish all ye jolly travelers a Merry Christmas and happy holidays!