Jolly Old...Saint...Martin?

We've become accustomed to quite a few cultural differences since moving abroad, but now that we are coming into the holiday season, I'm beginning to realize that we Americans have got nothing on the way things are celebrated over here.  In the States, I've become used to the sudden and brief hubbub that is Halloween, then come lots of people grumbling about respecting the Turkey and once our Thanksgiving feasts are over, as a whole, we seem to leap wholeheartedly into Christmas or *insert appropriate December holiday here* in a fit of consumerism and holiday parties.

Now that we are in Europe, and more importantly, are close to people from a wealth of different cultures, there seems to be a new holiday we're nearly missing every day.  I attribute much of this to Austria's primarily Catholic population and the simple fact that the history here is older and richer than our comparably young nation.

Take for instance today; the 11th of November is Martinstag, or the feast day of  St. Martin--a Christian, when such a thing went against the grain of common society, and a Roman soldier stationed in Gaul, this saint is most notorious for one legend in which he came upon a beggar freezing in the cold and cut his military cloak in two to share with the man, thus saving him from death.  Later St. Martin dreamed the beggar was, in reality, Jesus who said of him: "Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptized; he has clad me."  Saint Martin's Day is typically celebrated with a feast, as it is meant to mark the beginning of the original 40 days of fasting for the advent period (which was later shortened to begin the fourth Sunday before Christmas). Dizzying isn't it?  Many festivities begin at the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour--complete with bonfires, a lantern procession and the singing of songs for St. Martin.

Queen of the lanterns...or something like it

Now, we haven't seen masses parading down the street with paper lanterns here, but there has been a lot of subtle celebration going on.  All week we've seen school kids around the city carrying their lanterns and a few of the shops on our street have been leaving lanterns outside their doors.  At Audrey's school they hosted a lantern celebration--a full-on show by the kids, touting their own lanterns...with real candles.  Just for the record, handing flaming lanterns to sixty kids is fairly brave in my book.  Luckily, everyone made it through with their eyebrows intact and poor Audrey survived what was, I'm sure, a future therapy session in the making.  Afterwards, all the kids met together in the garden and shared bread and oranges to commemorate St. Martin sharing his cloak.  That part at least could be categorized as fun.  Audrey shared her food with her friend, Coen, an absolutely charming little boy from Australia, and they even held hands all the way home on the train.  While we won't be making any bonfires or feasting on anything but leftovers tonight, we still had fun celebrating in our little way.    I'll keep you posted on the next holiday to pop up and bite me.  The advent season is chock-a-block full of them.