Christmas in Switzerland shares many of the customs from its neighbors Germany and Austria. But it has many traditions of its own!

Advent marks the start of the Christmas preparations. Advent calendars and crowns are both popular.

In some villages, there are ‘real’ advent calendars with different houses decorating an ‘Advent Window’.

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On the day when it’s your house with the advent window, you hold a party for the villagers in the evening.

There’s food, mulled wine (called Glühwein) and music.

Christmas markets are very popular in towns and cities where you can buy all kinds of Christmas foods and decorations.

Also, here are big light displays and you can enjoy some more hot Glühwein!

There are many local traditions of parades and carol singing in Switzerland.

In the Bernese Oberland region, there are processions starting on Christmas Day and finishing on New Year’s Eve.

They’re known as the ‘Trychle’ as people parade wearing a big Trychler (cow bell) or carrying drums and normally wearing masks.

The ‘Urnäsch Silvesterkläuse’ processions take place in the Appenzell Ausserrhoden, especially in the villages around Urnäsch.

Besides, they take place from December 31st to January 13th and date back over 200 years.

The people (known as Kläuse in the processions) wear costumes, masks and head dresses.

They go from house to house singing and making lots of noise to wish people a good new year.

‘Star Singing’ is also very popular among children.

What’s more, they go carol singing from the last week of Advent until Epiphany, carrying a large star infant of them.

The star represents the star that the Wisemen followed when they visited the baby Jesus.

Christmas Trees are popular in Switzerland and are often bought and decorated on Christmas Eve.

Some people like use real candles on the tree, which are traditionally lit on Christmas Eve (when the presents are being opened!) and on New Year’s Eve.

The main Christmas meal is eaten on Christmas Eve and popular foods include a Christmas ham and scalloped potatoes with melted cheese and milk baked into it.

Dessert is often a walnut cake and Christmas cookies.

Cookies are very popular to buy and make. Each family has their own recipes and favorites.

Another popular food, especially for parties, is fondue (a pot of melted cheese which you dip bread in – and you might have to kiss the person on your left!).

Sometimes ‘FIGUGEGL’ (fee-goo-geck-ul) is added to party invitations. This means ‘Fondu isch guet und git e gueti Lune’ (fondue is good and gives a good mood).

There are four official languages in Switzerland, Merry Christmas in Swiss German is ‘Schöni Wiehnachte’, in French it’s ‘Joyeux Noël’, in Italian it’s ‘Buon Natale’ and in Romansh it’s ‘Bellas festas da Nadal’.

The first known item that looked a bit like a Christmas card was given to King James I of England (who was also King James VI of Scotland) in 1611.

People have been sending Christmas greetings to each other for hundreds of years.

The first recorded use of ‘Merry Christmas’ was in a Christmas letter sent in 1534.

This was more like a large ornamental manuscript rather than a card as we think of them today.

It was 84cm x 60cm (33″ x 24″) and was folded into panels (it might have been folded so it could be carried around).

It had a picture of a rose in the centre and a Christmas and New Year message to the King and his son was written into and around the rose.

Also on the manuscript were four poems and a song – so rather more than are on cards today!

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The custom of sending Christmas cards, as we know them today, was started in the UK in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole.

He was a senior civil servant (Government worker) who had helped set-up the new ‘Public Record Office’ (now called the Post Office), where he was an Assistant Keeper, and wondered how it could be used more by ordinary people.

The First Christmas Card

Sir Henry had the idea of Christmas Cards with his friend John Horsley, who was an artist.

They designed the first card and sold them for 1 shilling each.

(That is only 5p or 8 cents today(!), but in those days it was worth much more.)

The card had three panels.

The outer two panels showed people caring for the poor and in the center panel was a family having a large Christmas dinner!

Some people didn’t like the card because it showed a child being given a glass of wine!

About 1000 (or it might have been less!) were printed and sold.

They are now very rare and cost thousands of Pounds or Dollars to buy now!

The original cards were advertised with the slogan: “Just published, a Christmas Congratulations Card; or picture emblematical of old English festivity to perpetuate kind recollections between dear friends”!

How Christmas Cards Became A Common Christmas Tradition

The first postal service that ordinary people could use was started in 1840 when the first ‘Penny Post’ public postal deliveries began (Sir Henry Cole helped to introduce the Penny Post).

Before that, only very rich people could afford to send anything in the post.

The new Post Office was able to offer a Penny stamp because new railways were being built.

These could carry much more post than the horse and carriage that had been used before.

Also, trains could go a lot faster.

Cards became even more popular in the UK when they could be posted in an unsealed envelope for one halfpenny – half the price of an ordinary letter.

As printing methods improved, Christmas cards became much more popular and were produced in large numbers from about 1860.

In 1870 the cost of sending a post card, and also Christmas cards, dropped to half a penny.

This meant even more people were able to send cards.

An engraved card by the artist William Egley, who illustrated some of Charles Dickens’s books, is on display in the British Museum.

By the early 1900s, the custom had spread over Europe and had become especially popular in Germany.

The first cards usually had pictures of the Nativity scene on them.

In late Victorian times, robins (a British bird) and snow-scenes became popular.

In those times the postmen were nicknamed ‘Robin Postmen’ because of the red uniforms they wore.

Snow-scenes were popular because they reminded people of the very bad winter that happened in the UK in 1836.

Christmas Cards appeared in the United States of America in the late 1840s, but were very expensive and most people couldn’t afford them.

It 1875, Louis Prang, a printer who was originally from German but who had also worked on early cards in the UK, started mass producing cards so more people could afford to buy them.

Mr Prang’s first cards featured flowers, plants, and children.

In 1915, John C. Hall and two of his brothers created Hallmark Cards, who are still one of the biggest card makers today!

The first known ‘personalised’ Christmas Card was sent in 1891 by Annie Oakley, the famous sharpshooter and star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.

She was in Glasgow, Scotland at Christmas 1891 and sent cards back to her friends and family in the USA featuring a photo of her on it.

As she was in Scotland, she’s wearing tartan in the photo! Annie reportedly designed the cards herself and they were printed by a local printer.

In the 1910s and 1920s, home made cards became popular.

They were often unusual shapes and had things such as foil and ribbon on them.

These were usually too delicate to send through the post and were given by hand.

Traditional Mince Pies, are small, normally round pies. They’re very popular in the UK and some other countries like Australia and New Zealand.

Like Christmas Puddings, were originally filled with ground up or ‘minced’ meat, such as lamb, as well as dried fruit and spices, which where they got their name from.

Over the years the meet went out of them, as sugar and dried fruit became more affordable.

So, although they’re still called Mince Pies, and their filling is still called ‘mincemeat’, there’s no longer meat in them!

During the Stuart and Georgian times, in the UK, mince pies were a status symbol at Christmas.

Very rich people liked to show off at their Christmas parties by having pies made is different shapes (like stars, crescents, hearts, tears, & flowers); the fancy shaped pies could often fit together a bit like a jigsaw!

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They also had pies which looked like the ‘knot gardens’ that were popular during those periods.

Having pies like this meant you were rich and could afford to employ the best, and most expensive, pastry cooks.

During the Victorian period, less and less meat was in ‘mincemeat’ and the pies became small and round pies as we still have them today.

Some Victorian ‘historians’ also said that the first mince pies were made in an oval shape to represent the manger that Jesus slept in as a baby, with the top representing his swaddling clothes; and that sometimes they even had a ‘pastry baby Jesus’ on the top!

However, that’s not how the earliest pies were described in historical sources.

It might have been that some Victorians wanted mince pies to have a ‘religious’ history to fit in with Christmas.

Now mince pies are eaten hot or cold.

On Christmas Eve, children in the UK often leave out mince pies with brandy or some similar drink for Father Christmas, and a carrot for the reindeer.