A big fat Swissmas post

Warning: You may or may not encounter unicorns flying around this post because Christmas in Switzerland is absolute magic! (As well as a little odd especially if you grew up believing in a big fat jolly guy who flies around the world in one night, on a sleigh pulled by reindeer, who crawls down your chimney on Christmas Eve and leaves presents under the Christmas tree – because that’s not odd at all, right?!)

The festive season started for us on the 22nd November with the lighting of “Lucy”, the affectionate term given to the Christmas lights on Bahnhofstrasse in Zürich. On this day, at precisely 18:00, 12 000 crystals containing luminescent white, red and blue LED lights were switched on, signalling the beginning of the Weihnachtssaison and transforming Bahnhofstrasse into a romantic, twinkling wonderland.

We love “Lucy” and we visit her often but I secretly can’t wait until Christmas is over and the crowds have dispersed so that I can slip out into the streets and have her all to myself.

We’ve also visited many of the Weihnachtsmarkts in Zürich, exploring individual stands, ticking items off our Christmas lists, stopping to warm ourselves by the open fires and fill our tummies with gluhwein and hot chimney cakes.

It was at one of these markets where I discovered, much to my horror, that the big, fat, jolly Santa Claus that I grew up believing in was not the same as the Swiss’ Samichlaus. In fact, he’s based on a 4th century bishop who died on the 6th December and became St. Nicholas. The day of his death then became known as St. Nicholas Day. He’s a much skinnier version of our Santa, travels on a donkey and leaves nuts, gingerbread and mandarin oranges in children’s boots on this day.

But wait, … where our Santa would deliver presents to the good children and a sack of coal to the naughty children, the Swiss’ Samichlaus has a sidekick named Schmutzli who, back in the day, would come out of the woods carrying a stick and an empty sack which he would use to kidnap naughty children and carry them off into the forest for a good whipping. This actually now makes a lot of sense to me … no wonder the Swiss are so well behaved!

As much as I’ve loved all of the Christmas festivities and exploring the many Swiss traditions, I’ve been very aware that our first Christmas away from home could come with a little heartache and that we needed to find a way to make it extra special this year and to start what will become our new family traditions.

So when a friend offered to take us Christmas tree [s]chopping, we jumped at the opportunity. Little did I know that on the outskirts of our forest lies a gorgeous little Christmas tree farm where you can hand pick your Christmas tree and have it cut, trimmed and wrapped up whilst sipping warm punch and eating hot soup and sausages (Do you notice a theme here? I don’t know how the Swiss stay so skinny).