articles
China Elevator Stories
How Christmas is Celebrated in Austria and in China
In China, Christmas is an opportunity for couples to go on a date.
25/12/2024
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
If you grew up in a country with a large percentage of Christians, you’ll most likely be familiar with how Christmas is celebrated by the majority of people in Western countries.
How Austrians Celebrate Christmas
In Austria, Christmas is celebrated on the evening of December 24th, and it is common for parents to celebrate it with their children. Sometimes, parents celebrate with their children alone and celebrate it again together with the granparents on December 25th. Growing up, my family of 10 usually invited my maternal grandmother, who passed away at the beginning of December this year at the age of 96, to celebrate Christmas with us.
My mother used to bake cookies with us, and my parents bought presents, wrapped them, and then placed them under the Christmas tree. Our Christmas tree was a fresh, natural tree, and our home was filled with the scent of spruce. Usually, the tree would be put up a little before December 24th, and a few of us children would decorate it, either with a parent or, when we were a little older, on our own.
On the evening of December 24th, we would eat dinner featuring Austrian-style sauerkraut, Nuremberg sausages, potatoes, and various side dishes. After dinner, we would light the Christmas tree candles, gather around the tree, sing Christmas songs, and later open the presents.
As a family with eight children, we usually opened the presents in order of age. I am the fifth of eight children, so I was used to waiting until others had opened their presents.
Once we had opened our presents, we would play with our new toys until midnight, read the new books we had received, and then go to bed, satisfied with the new toys and books. Christmas was a delightful celebration for us.
Chinese-Style Christmas Celebrations at a Karaoke Bar
In China, I experienced Christmas quite differently. Until 2018, the last Christmas I spent there, I celebrated a smaller version of an Austrian Christmas with my kids in Siping. I used a small Chinese plastic tree I had bought for 30 Yuan in Shenzhen (which my ex-husband later shipped to Northeast China along with other items), gave my children toys ordered from Taobao, and prepared Austrian Christmas sausages (the Nuremberg sausages were also from Taobao). Meanwhile, others celebrated in a completely different way.
Shortly after I started dating my ex-husband in 2012, our Chinese boss invited us to dinner at a Yunnanese-style restaurant in Shenzhen, and we later went to sing karaoke in one of the huge karaoke bars found in many places across China. Karaoke is a favorite pastime of many Chinese, and karaoke bars can be found almost anywhere. A Chinese karaoke bar is usually a large venue with many private rooms, where groups of people rent a room, order snacks and drinks, and sing songs offered by the karaoke bar. Since I am introverted and, unlike many Chinese who enjoy singing and don’t mind others listening, don’t like singing when others are watching, I usually just watched others sing.
How Christmas is Most Commonly Celebrated in China
The most common way for Chinese people to celebrate Christmas, however, is different. Christmas is often used as a celebration for couples, and they tend to go on a date on Christmas Eve. It is frequently celebrated this way by young people, either people my age or one or two generations younger. My ex-husband used to stay away and didn’t really celebrate Christmas with me and our children, using the excuse that couples were ordering pizza from his shop and he needed to work instead. Therefore, I stayed home alone with my children, sometimes with the grandparents showing up uninvited, celebrating a smaller version of Christmas.
Chinese people also give each other apples. These are usually wrapped in red paper or come in other festive packaging, and often Chinese characters with Christmas wishes are carved into the apples, such as “圣诞平安” (shèngdàn píng’ān, “Merry Christmas”). Many of the people I know have complained that these apples weren’t fresh when they bought them, and I cannot recommend buying these apples as a present. However, they are a common gift exchanged in China for Christmas. An apple is called “苹果” (píngguǒ), and Christmas Eve is called “平安夜” (píng’ānyè) in Chinese. Both “apple” and “Christmas Eve” contain the syllable “ping,” and even though the Chinese characters are not the same in both words, apples have become a symbol of Christmas in China.
Have you ever celebrated Christmas in China?