Christmas Time in Austria
Discover Christmas markets and traditions
Introduction
In Austria, the run-up to Christmas begins on the first Sunday of Advent. On each of the four Advent Sundays, another candle is lit on the Advent wreath, and Advent calendars count down the days to Christmas Eve. In Austria, 24 December is the main celebration: the tree is lit that evening, and the presents are brought not by Father Christmas but by the Christkind, the Christ Child – the figure the Christkindlmärkte are named after.
In many families, baking Christmas biscuits together is part of Advent, and recipes are often handed down from one generation to the next. The Christkindlmärkte are a fixture too, and a chance to spend time together.
The season is also shaped by Christmas customs that differ from region to region. St Nicholas has his own day on 6 December and is a separate figure from Father Christmas; the Krampus runs take place around the same time. And during the Rauhnächte, the nights between Christmas and Epiphany, herbs and incense are burned to smoke through houses and stables. Which traditions a family keeps varies from place to place, and some go back centuries and are still passed on today.
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"Silent Night! Holy Night!"
On 24 December 1818, “Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!” was heard for the first time in Oberndorf near Salzburg. The priest Joseph Mohr had written the words two years earlier, in 1816, in Mariapfarr; the teacher and organist Franz Xaver Gruber composed the melody in 1818. The two performed it together on Christmas Eve in Oberndorf.
From Salzburg, the carol travelled by way of Tirol out into the world. The organ builder Carl Mauracher is thought to have brought it to the Zillertal, and from there the Rainer and Strasser families of singers carried it beyond Austria’s borders on their travels.
Other places are closely bound up with the story. Joseph Mohr was born in Salzburg in 1792; Franz Xaver Gruber came from Hochburg-Ach in Upper Austria and later worked in Hallein, where in 1854 he set down the carol’s origins and his own authorship in writing, in the document known as the “Authentische Veranlassung”.
Today the Silent Night Chapel and the museum in Oberndorf commemorate that first performance. Further places to visit are the parish, pilgrimage and Silent Night museum in Mariapfarr, and the historic schoolhouse in Arnsdorf, where Gruber taught and played the organ.