Special Celebrations

Germany, Goettingen

 

Dear Circle Friends,

Here we have listed some holidays we have here in Germany. But we have left some out. We will send them later:

 

 

Whitsuntide

 

This year on 30th/31st of May Whitsuntide:

For Christians Whitsuntide is the celebration of the Holy Ghost . With this day the 50day Easter time ends. In the Bible the Holy Ghost is seen as a creative power of life. He was forwarded to the world, to teach the people the Christian doctrine.

 

 

Easter

 

On the second Sunday in April, we celebrate Easter with special German customs. On Easter we eat a lot of real, painted eggs, chocolate eggs and a lamb which is made out of cake, in the morning. Then the children search for chocolate eggs, which were hidden by the Easter bunny (by their parents).

In the evening, many familes have a traditional meal: lamb with potatoes and vegetables.

 

 

The German Unification Day

 

Since 1990, the „Tag der Deutschen Einheit“ has been a national holiday in  Germany. Since then, the German Unification Day has been celebrated on the 3rd of October. This is the day of the German Unification. Since 1990, the German Unification Day has been celebrated in the capital of the federal state, which has got the chair in the Federal Assembly (there are 16 federal states in Germany. In 2004, it will be celebrated at Erfurt, the capital of Thüringen, one of the federal states of Germany. 

 

 

About New Year‘s Eve

 

New Year‘s Eve is an old traditional event, where the people celebrate big parties. They drank, ate and sang and all the people were happy.

 

Now, in Germany, it isn’t much different: most of the young, and some of the older people go to parties, drink rather much alcohol and have fireworks at midnight.

They are all happy and at four or five o’clock they all go back home where they sleep late.

One big event in Germany is the party at the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) in Berlin.

In 2001/2002, 400,000 people celebrated New Year‘s Eve there, and, of course, they drank very much alcohol, so 221 people had to go to hospital! Horrible!!

But at the Brandenburger Tor are the biggest fireworks in Germany.

But also the private people all over Germany have fireworks.

That’s very important because a legend says that this bans all the bad ghosts and it welcomes the New Year.

 

But there are many other options of celebrate the New Year

 

 

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