Heiligabend in Hamburg

 

Setting up for the Christmas Eve Heiligabend  (Christmas Eve) open-air services. This is the same location where the Tuesday and Saturday open-air markets take place.

In Germany, reservations were required to attend this year's Christmas Eve church services. Masks, Christmas music, language barrier, and a minister looking rather like Martin Luther. No reservation? No problem. There was an ideal spot for me on the sidelines.

Practicing for the Christmas Eve service.

Actually, the clerical collar is maybe more like Queen Elizabeth I. 

Darnley Portrait of Elizabeth 1575

After digging deeper I have learned that style collar is called a ruff. These pieces of cloth could be changed and laundered separately so they might be considered a practical piece of clothing for the times. Well, maybe not so practical since they were made of fine linen, trimmed with lace, cutwork, or embroidery, then shaped into crisp, precise folds with starch and heated irons. But, the entire garment did not need to be washed, right?

It appears that the ruffs slowly fell from fashion in the 1600's. So why does the Lutheran clergy wear ruffs today in Hamburg?

If when presents are opened is the qualifier, Christmas Eve is the main holiday in Germany.  

Shops close around midday on Christmas Eve (Weihnachten). Many offices allow workers to leave early to go home and enjoy a traditional meal of potato salad and sausages with their families.

O Tannenbaum. Traditionally Christmas trees aren't set up and decorated until Christmas Eve. The use of evergreens became a Christmas symbol of everlasting life may go back much further than even the 1550s, but still with a Germanic connection. In an effort to Christianize the Germanic tribes in the 8th century, St. Boniface is said to have introduced the use of evergreens. Saint Boniface found a group of pagans worshipping an oak tree and became angry. He proceeded to cut down the oak tree and immediately a small fir tree is said to have sprouted from the middle of the oak stump and reached to the sky. Displacing the pagan oak tree of Odin, he then dedicated the fir tree (Tannenbaum) to the Christ Child.

 Saint Boniface deemed the evergreen tree to now be their holy tree because it was a symbol of everlasting life.

Forget Santa kids, meet the Christkind (Christ Child). Christkind is depicted as an angelic figure with blond hair and wings.  Christkind is a Christmas gift-bringer. Much like its more famous counterpart, Santa Claus, Christkind is said to leave presents for children under the Christmas tree on the night of Christmas Eve. The Christkind is not meant to be seen. Parents distract their little ones, then miraculously when the children return to the Christmas tree the Christkind has left special gifts for them.