Christmas in Vienna, Part 2
More merriment and memories
Read Christmas in Vienna, Part 1 first.
With just days to go before Christmas, we decided to buy a little tree. We hadn’t had a real one since 2021 and there were trees for sale at the park just down the way from our AirBNB. Purchasing it was hilarious because we spoke basically no German and the men selling it spoke no English. Although I know my numbers in German, I got confused when the man said achtunddreißig and I thought to myself, “Eighty-three Euro?!” So I took out my phone, pulled up the calculator, and gestured for them to type in the price: 38 Euro. Oh, right, the second number goes first in German. (Thank you, high school German!)
The girls insisted on carrying the tree home all by themselves. [Click to see video short.] I may or may not have told them it was only two blocks. After two blocks, I told them it was two more. Truth was, I wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t that far! Course, I wasn’t carrying a tree, LOL. We got it situated in the corner of the living room and contemplated how we could decorate it. Friends on Facebook had all sorts of homemade ideas, but we had none of the materials to make anything homemade and didn’t know where to go get many of them.
Fortunately, I spotted some decorations in a nearby store getting off the tram one night (the night we went one stop too far—see, it worked out!) and went back the next day for them. It was perfect because the store was like TJ Maxx (TK Maxx for those in the UK/Europe), so they were pretty affordable. The only hiccup was that they didn’t come with hooks. I figured we could pick up paperclips, though I didn’t see any at the grocery store and we tried a stationery store, with no luck. Then S reminded me she had seen ornament hooks at one of the Christmas markets, so we headed back, this time with C, and had success.
While our favorite Christkindlmarkt for spirit was Rathaus (on the city hall square), our favorites for vendors were probably Am Hof followed closely by Altwiener. Both had many more artisans to food stalls and we found some nice jewelry pieces, plus an apron and tea towel for me. Of course, we did also sample the food, consuming huge pretzels (apple cinnamon and nutella) and churros and hot chocolate with whipped cream. ;) I refrained and only collected two mugs, one from Rathaus and one from Stephansplatz. (Some people make it their mission to collect mugs from every Christmas market, but we had limited space to get them “home.”)
We went out for a couple of nice meals, but otherwise cooked at lot at our AirBNB. The kitchen was well equipped but small, so it required a lot of dance moves to share the space. Also, the fridge wasn’t full size, so we had to Tetris in our food. I managed to find a 3.9kg turkey (so exciting), but making space for it in the fridge, both raw and then cooked (in terms of what was left), was a challenge! But we made it work. I roasted it on the one oven pan we had and then moved it to a frying pan to carve while making gravy out of the pan drippings. [Click to see the video short.] Creativity for the win!
S baked her traditional peppermint cookies, which are the same ones that my sister and I baked with my mom growing up. They’re a labor of love and she was meticulous about rolling the layers exactly the same size and shape. [Click to see the video short.] We also baked plain sugar cookies, chocolate sugar cookies, and chocolate-peppermint cookies. We didn’t manage to make any icing, though, so we just ate them undecorated. Oh well!
Christmas Eve we watched Home Alone and played cards. S also insisted on wrapping a couple of gifts just for the tradition of having something to open Christmas Day. However, we had waited till the last minute to buy wrapping paper and it was quite picked over. She chose what she thought was a silver color; it turned out to be clear cellophane, kind of like what you sometimes get bags of bakery cookies in. Also, the only tape we could find was washi tape, LOL.
Needless to say, she battled to wrap those presents and ended up using parchment paper under the plastic to mask the gift inside (yes, even though she knew what it was). Just before going to bed (at midnight!) she informed me that she had put cookies and milk out for Santa and “he” needed to come eat some of them. After all, it was tradition. So I may or may not have dutifully eaten some bites before hitting the pillow.
Christmas Day was very chill, as we didn’t have much of anything to open, though we did open stockings, which we had stuffed with some things the girls had picked out at the Christmas markets and already knew they were getting, LOL.
I had made a dinner reservation for 6pm and we were running a bit late getting out of the apartment but would’ve arrived about on time except we got on the tram going the wrong way. Whoops! It was my fault; I spaced out and wasn’t thinking. Fortunately, I realized it before we went too far in the wrong direction, but the family was not pleased with me and I’m sure I won’t live it down anytime soon. We arrived to dinner about 10 minutes late and, fortunately, it was no big deal.
Afterwards, we did a Zoom with my family and a FaceTime with Auntie Shan and her family. And then we started packing so we didn’t have to do it all the next morning on top of picking up the apartment and figuring out how to dispose of a dry Christmas tree before heading off to Budapest! (Cleaning up the pine needles by hand wasn’t fun—there was no broom—but I would still get the tree all over again!)
Here’s hoping your Christmas was full of peace and love no matter where in the world you celebrated or how.