Holidays to Switzerland Travel Podcast Episode 60 Transcript

Christmas in Switzerland – Cookies and Customs

You can see the full show notes and listen to this episode > here.

Announcer

Are you dreaming of visiting Switzerland? Planning a trip to Switzerland is very exciting, but it can also be overwhelming. How do you choose which are the many scenic cities, towns, and villages to visit? Which mountaintop excursions should you take? And what’s the best way to get around Switzerland? And of course, how much of the country can you realistically see within your time frame? If you’ve asked yourself any of these questions, this is the podcast for you. This is the Holidays to Switzerland Travel podcast. And in each episode, your host, Carolyn Schönafinger, chats with Swiss travel experts to answer your most commonly asked questions, provide practical tips and take you on a virtual visit to the most popular destinations, and of course, some hidden gems to help you plan your dream trip to Switzerland. You’ll hear plenty of conversations about Swiss cheese and chocolate, too. Are you ready to plan your trip to Switzerland? Well, let’s get started.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Hi there. Welcome to episode 60 of the Holidays to Switzerland podcast. I don’t know about you, but I can’t believe we’re almost at the end of the year, and Christmas will be here before we know it. The lead up to Christmas really is a special time to be in Switzerland. There’s a little bit of magic in the air when Christmas trees start appearing in town squares, and twinkling lights are strung up, and the aromas of roasting chestnuts, ginger bread, and muled wine can be savoured at Christmas markets. We heard a little about Switzerland’s Christmas markets in episode 55, but today I wanted to dive a little deeper and hear about the customs and traditions of Christmas that are so important to the Swiss. Of course, they include Christmas markets, but there’s so much more. As in many nations, food plays a big role in Christmas celebrations, and cookies are a major part of Switzerland’s Christmas cuisine. In fact, there are four main cookies that no Swiss household would be without at Christmas. To tell us more about Swiss Christmas traditions and cookies, I’ve invited Andie Pilot, a Swiss Canadian pastry chef and cookbook author, back to the podcast.

Carolyn Schönafinger

One of Andie’s books is dedicated to Swiss cookies, and of course, it has a section on Christmas cookies. I bought a copy of Andie’s Swiss Cookies book last year and baked a couple of varieties before Christmas, and they were a big hit with my family. But as well as sharing her love of Swiss Christmas cookies with us, Andie is going to give us an insight into how the Swiss prepare for and celebrate Christmas, what they eat for Christmas dinner, and you might be surprised, and how they spend Christmas Day. Before we hear from Andie, I’d like, as always, to say a big thank you to the team from Switzerland Tourism for sponsoring the podcast. There’s lots of info about visiting Switzerland at Christmas time on their website, myswitzerland.com.  So do go and take a look. If you are planning to visit Switzerland at Christmas time, whether it’s to try all the delicious cookies or immerse yourself in the magic of a Christmas market, remember to take your camera because if you need the perfect shot, you need Switzerland. I can’t wait to chat about all things Christmas in Switzerland. So let’s hear from Andie.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Hello, Andie. Thank you so much for coming back onto the podcast. It’s lovely to have you here again.

Andie Pilot

Thanks, Carolyn. And I’m so happy to be back.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Yeah, we’ve had some great discussions in the past about Swiss food and also about all the Swiss lovely drinks that you can try. And I must say that I hadn’t tried Rivella before you mentioned it in our last podcast that we did together. And when I was in Switzerland this year, I tried it, and I actually really liked it. So thank you for the tip on that.

Andie Pilot

Oh, not at all. I’m so pleased. It can be a real acquired flavour for somewhere. I’m glad that you enjoyed it.

Carolyn Schönafinger

I think it was more just the sound of it that’s made with whey. I think that was what put me off. But yeah, actually, it tasted really nice. For those listeners who haven’t heard our previous episodes together, would you like to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background and what you do?

Andie Pilot

Absolutely. My name is Andie Pilot. I am a pastry chef, food writer, and cookbook author. I write all about Swiss food and drink. Yeah, my background is I I am half Swiss. I grew up in Canada. I moved to Switzerland about, oh, now it’s like 12 years ago. I started writing about Swiss food on my blog, Helvetic Kitchen. From there, it snowballed into cookbooks. Now, every day, I write about Swiss food and eat Swiss food, and I’m in heaven.

Carolyn Schönafinger

The perfect life. We should mention, too, that your very first cookbook called Helvetic Kitchen: Swiss cooking has just been re-released in a brand new format. So well done on that. Congratulations.

Andie Pilot

Thank you so much. Yes, the original book was just recipes with small hand-drawn pictures, and now I have a full cookbook with photos of all the dishes. Yeah, I’m really happy about it.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Well, before we go to, we will let everyone know where they can get a copy of those books. So we’ll make sure to let everyone know that. Now we’re fast approaching Christmas, which, yes, seems unreal when you think how fast the year has gone. So I think it would be great, especially for those people who are thinking of visiting Switzerland at Christmas time, if not this year, perhaps in the future, just what traditions and customs the Swiss follow during the festive season. Would you like to tell us about how the Swiss celebrate Christmas?

Andie Pilot

Absolutely. So one of the best parts about approaching Christmas in Switzerland, of course, are the Christmas markets. You find these in pretty much every big Swiss city. Some of the most famous are the one in Basel. That’s huge. The one in Bern is really beautiful. And lots of people know about the one in the Zurich train station. And the focal point of that one, of course, is a huge Christmas tree that reaches right to the top of the roof, and it is covered in Swarovski crystals. And you can imagine in the evening, just how that glitters in the train station there really puts you in a Christmasy mood. In the big cities, the Christmas markets just stay there throughout the season. They open up in early December, and they are open right until the New Year, basically until New Year’s Eve. And you can go to them every day. You can find, of course, Christmasy stuff, Christmas decoration, things like that. And of course, a lot of foods that are associated with Christmas. You can buy Christmas cookies, and you can, of course, have a glass of gluhwein, mulled wine. It’s often red wine.

Andie Pilot

I’ve seen in the last few years, they make a white wine version as well, too, which is becoming really popular. And sometimes you can find what’s called gluhmösht, and that is just like an apple cider. And that you can get non-alcoholic as well. That’s really nice. Of course, in Switzerland, it’s hot chocolate. You can have hot chocolate everywhere, too, which is nice before Christmas time.

Carolyn Schönafinger

The markets, are they a good place to buy the Christmas ornaments that people like to hang on Christmas trees? Is that something that we’ll find at a Swiss Christmas market

Andie Pilot

Absolutely, yeah. In the big cities, you’ll definitely find stands selling things like that. And of course, all sorts of local products. In cities like Bern, a couple of weekends before Christmas, they even have a special handicraft Christmas market. And that’s just all local producers that are coming. And they have, I mean, literally everything, wool products and people who are making all sorts of food products before Christmas. And that’s when you get the real local things. Here in our little town of Trübschachen, we have a big cookie factory here, the famous Kambly Cookie Factory. And for two weekends, they also have Christmas market with local goods and, of course, lots and lots of cookies. And so in smaller places, if you go to a smaller town or if you’re up in the mountains. Their Christmas market might not be on every single day, like in the big cities, but you’ll definitely have a weekend where they have local artisans coming and you can buy things from theirs.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Wonderful. Definitely something that you must do if you’re heading to Switzerland in the lead up Christmas.

Andie Pilot

Absolutely. So the lead up to Christmas Advent time, I find, is almost a bigger deal than Christmas Day itself. It’s all these preparations throughout this season. And in Switzerland, of course, they celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December, but they also have a big celebration on the sixth of December, and that is St. Nicholas Day. That’s celebrated in lots of parts of Europe. And here in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, there is a visit from St. Nicholas, who is called Sami Klaus here. And he comes to children’s houses or you can visit him at supermarkets or at Christmas markets and things like that. He comes along quite often with a live donkey and his helper, Schmutzli, who will take the bad children away. And the good children receive a little sack full of, usually, mandarin oranges, chocolate,, which is gingerbread, and peanuts. So most little children get a sack. My daughter and her kindergarten class, they go out into the woods, and then Sami Klaus appears from the woods with his live donkey, and the children must each say a little poem to him, and then they receive this little sack of treats. If you’re in a Swiss supermarket around this time, you’ll see these big bins filled with loose peanuts or loose chocolates and stuff and little burlap sacks next to it.

Andie Pilot

Then you can fill the burlap sack, and then by weight, you can buy these little Sami Klaus sacks. You, too, can enjoy peanuts and chocolate and oranges.

Carolyn Schönafinger

So do children then still get presents on Christmas Eve?

Andie Pilot

They do, yes. And usually, how that goes is on, yes, the 24th of December, you will gather in the evening with your family. Usually, it’s your immediate family at home. Traditionally, like when my mum describes how Christmas was when she was a little girl in Switzerland, you would bring home your Christmas tree on the 24th of December, and it wouldn’t be decorated at all. The children were then shoed out of the room. The Christmas tree was decorated and all lit up quite often with wax candles. Then a bell would ring, and the children would come back into the room, and they would see this beautifully decorated Christmas present. The presents were all under the tree, and they would say that the Kris Kindli had come. So Jesus, baby Jesus, had brought them all these presents under the tree. And nowadays, I know people decorate their Christmas tree a little bit earlier, maybe not quite as early as I was used to in Canada when people were already at the end of remember putting up their Christmas trees. But a few weeks before, quite often, people are decorate their trees. But yeah, usually the gift giving all done on the evening of the 24th and then the 25th.

Andie Pilot

People have it as a holiday, but that’s more of a day of relaxing and maybe reading the books that you got for Christmas and playing the games.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Okay, so how do the Swiss prepare for coming up to the 24th? What things would they do to make the Christmas celebration special?

Andie Pilot

So they do It’s quite a lot of different things. Of course, they all have advent calendars. That’s something that I see in the English-speaking world has become a lot more popular in the past, I think, decade or two decades or so. But as a child, I remember my mother gave me an advent calendar that she had made herself with little bits of chocolate. I was the only one in school who had that, and it was really special. And so that here also is a huge tradition that everyone has an advent calendar, and every day they can open a little box. Lots of people still make those by themselves rather than by the store bought ones. But those are also, of course, really popular. Or you can even buy what I really liked when my daughter was really little, just a big poster with little doors, and then she can open it. And every day was a new picture, and then it built a big scene. So that’s really nice. You can also buy lots of beautiful cards where you open a window every day. It’s not just advent calendars that you have at home. Some whole towns do something called advent windows. 24 different families or homes in the town will volunteer to decorate one of their windows. Each day, members of the village or the community will walk from window to window, and then the window will be unveiled on whatever day of December they have. Then that family will often offer maybe some glue wine. They have a little apéro with the members of the community, and that’s really lovely. Perhaps if you’re in a smaller town, Switzerland, you’ll see these beautifully decorated windows, the advent windows.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Yeah, what a lovely community event.

Andie Pilot

Yeah. Also, don’t forget to look at the beautiful shop windows that they have here, too. In the big cities, you see some really amazing windows with mechanical figures and decorated for Christmas that are really, really lovely. And of course, for me, the most important part of this advent time is the baking, making Christmas cookies. This is huge. Actually, one thing I forgot to mention for December the sixth, they bake a special bread that’s in the shape of a little boy called a Grittibänz. He often has a little chocolate stick tucked under his arm. And you’ll see that also in bakery He’s around this time. He’s just a delicious little treat to have.

Carolyn Schönafinger

So aside from cookies, which we’ll talk more about later, what else do the Swiss typically eat as their Christmas meal on December 24th?

Andie Pilot

This is really interesting. This is something that has been fascinating me as long as I have lived here, because, of course, in Canada, we have such a set Christmas meal. People eat a turkey, mashed potatoes. Every family will maybe do the side dishes a little, but you can be pretty sure that in most families, there will be a turkey on the table. Here in Switzerland, there truly is not specific food to eat at Christmas time. Basically, families are just getting the best cut of meat. They’re maybe trying something new. My mother-in-law is always wrapping a really excellent cut of meat in some dough or puff pastry, and she’s doing beautiful decoration on it and things like this. But it’s not a set meal. I feel like every year, it’s something a little bit different. You often have a fondue around Christmas time, Christmas or New Year’s, and the fondue that’s most popular is usually the fondue chinoise. So that’s when you have a hot broth or hot oil, and you’re cooking the meat at the table in the pot and eating that. So my In-laws often have that on New Year’s Eve. As a child, I often had it on Christmas Eve.

Andie Pilot

But generally, there’s not a set meal. But the other thing I should also mention that people are eating in the advent time is chestnuts, hot roasted chestnuts that you can buy in little stands throughout Swiss cities, and that’s something that you should not miss. You get a little bag. There are two little pockets on the bag. One is filled with the cooked chestnuts, and then there’s another little pocket on the other side that you can put the chestnut shells into once you’ve eaten the insides out. And yeah, that’s a wonderful treat.

Carolyn Schönafinger

They think of everything in Switzerland, even somewhere to put the chestnut shells. Exactly. So would you say that Christmas is as commercialised in Switzerland as it is in other countries like the US and Canada and Australia, for instance. I mean, I know here, even September and certainly October, there’s Christmas decorations and Christmas cards starting to appear in the stores. Is it similar in Switzerland?

Andie Pilot

I think it’s creeping in more and more every year, you see them trying to sell you more things and having stuff in the stores a little bit earlier. I mean, here they complain about it just as much. I think last week was the first that I saw Christmas things really being aggressively put into the supermarkets and bags of Lebkuchen and stuff like that.

Carolyn Schönafinger

So that’s mid-October.

Andie Pilot

It’s mid-October, yeah. And here there’s no Halloween, so there’s nothing to stop it. I feel like in some countries, people can be like, Okay, we’ll wait till after Halloween, November first, let’s go. But here, there’s no Halloween to hold them back. Yeah, I think it’s a little bit less commercialised in some ways, too. There’s really a focus. I mean, again, we live in a small town. There’s really a focus on spending time with your family and making cookies together and less so focused on gift giving.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Lots of commercialization, but in a way, it’s still the traditional just spending time with a family and appreciating the time of year. Okay, so let’s talk about cookies because I know this is a topic that you’re very fond of. I must say to everyone listening that I did buy a copy of your Swiss cookies book last year, and I did make a few of them, and they were a big hit. So thank you for providing easy to follow instructions and probably never-fail recipes if I’ve managed to succeed with them. So would you like to tell us about some of Switzerland’s favourite Christmas cookies?

Andie Pilot

Oh, absolutely. So there are four cookies, they call them the big four, and I think these are the four most popular cookies, definitely in the German-speaking part of Switzerland but also in the French-speaking part as well. The most popular cookie in Switzerland is Mäilanderli or Milanese. These are basically just a very buttery shortbread cookie. They have a little hint of lemon in them and they are baked by every family in Switzerland throughout the Christmas season.For lots of people, that’s their favourite cookie. For lots of people, they find it to be a really boring cookie, but of course, it brings them back memories of childhood. The history of this cookie, there’s not really a consensus on why it’s called Mäilanderli Milanese. That implies that it’s from the city of Milan. Mäiland is the German word for Milan. They don’t quite know why it’s called that but they have been making it for centuries. They made it in Basel, famously. A lot of the Christmas cookie traditions come from Basel or were featured a lot in Basel, and they used to have it there at New Year’s and serve it with gluhwein in the 18th, 19th century. And then it spread throughout the country. I think for most families, if they only bake one Christmas cookie. This would be the cookie that they bake. Maybe the next favourite for lots of people, their favourite is the Brunsli. This is also a cookie from Basel. It’s often called the Basler Brunsli. This was also a cookie that initially was made throughout the year, not just for Christmas. They had it for weddings and things like this. It is a nutty cookie. One of the things I like about a lot of the Swiss Christmas cookies is they are just naturally gluten-free. They were a luxurious cookie, so they were just made with ground nuts and usually egg whites. And this one is made with chocolate. You can use just cocoa powder, just ground chocolate. Many different kinds of nuts are used depending on what your family bakes or what you prefer. You can make it with hazelnuts or ground almonds or even ground walnuts. And that’s another classic Swiss Christmas cookie.

Carolyn Schönafinger

So you couldn’t get bored with that one because you can make so many different varieties.

Andie Pilot

Absolutely. I’ve made it before with a little bit orange zest in it, which is really nice. I’ve made it, one year I glazed it with mint. Swiss people really don’t like the mix of mint and chocolate, so I ate most of those myself, but it was also quite delicious. Another really nutty favourite Christmas cookie here in Switzerland is the Zimtsterne. You definitely don’t only find this in Switzerland. It’s really popular in Germany, too. This one, you can also make it with either ground almonds or ground hazelnuts. The most important part is egg white glaze that’s on the top. You have a perfect Zimtsterne if you manage to bake it and the top stays pristine white. That’s the main trick of baking this cookie, Zimtsterne. Zimt is the German word for cinnamon. So they’re cinnamon stars. In the French part of Switzerland, they’re Etoile a la cannelle. And yeah, that’s a really popular one as well. And of course, also gluten free.

Carolyn Schönafinger

So I guess you have a little star-shaped cookie cutter that you use.

Andie Pilot

Yeah, that’s right. And then the fourth favourite is the Spitzbuben. In French, that’s called a miroir. That’s just like a jam sandwich cookie. That one is really beloved. That’s probably my daughter’s favourite Christmas cookie. In our family, my grandmother always and my mother always made it with red current jam. In between, I like mine with raspberry jam. Another real favourite that they make here often is putting quince jelly in between, which is really nice. And yeah, that one’s another of the classic.

Carolyn Schönafinger

That’s one of the ones that I made, and it was a big hit. What’s the history behind that one? Do you know? Because the buben part of the name is a boy. Is that right?

Andie Pilot

A spitzbub in Swiss German means a mischievous little boy, a little rascal or something, you would be like, oh, it’s a spitzbub. And traditionally, they made these cookies quite a bit bigger, and then they cut a face into it. So two eyes and a big grin. And so it looked like this jammy little face was looking at you. And you can find those in bakeries all year round. The big spitzbuben. Yeah, that’s where the name is from. But in my research, they’re not actually that old. They are, I think from the last century, they only started making them, but they become super, duper popular.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Now, there’s a couple more that I’d like to ask you about. They’re not typically Swiss, I know, because my mother-in-law is from Germany, and she’s a wizard making, well, particularly one of them, the vanilla gipfel. I have attempted these before and failed, so I’ll leave it to her now, but they’re a big hit in our family. And the other one is lebkuchen. Would you like to tell us some more about those two delicious cookies?

Andie Pilot

Absolutely, yes. The vanilla gipfeli, I call it in my book, that would be the Swiss German name for it. You often see it as vanille kipferl with a K. That’s a typically Austrian cookie. But of course, yeah, it’s throughout the German-speaking world. That is a tricky cookie to make. I I always also struggle a little bit with that one, too. You have to keep the dough really, really cold because it’s just chock full of butter. But it’s one of my favourite. And at the end, you dust it in lots of powdered sugar, and it just melts in your mouth. And yeah, that one’s excellent. It looks like a little croissant.

Carolyn Schönafinger

And do you make yours with hazelnut meal?

Andie Pilot

I make it with, usually, ground almonds. And I actually, typically, in Switzerland, it’s really easy to buy your ground almonds, your ground nuts here. They sell that, and it’s all on sale at Christmas time, which is great. I will ground it a little bit more to make it a bit finer so that it holds together a little bit better. So that’s a good tip. But they are a tricky cookie, and you have to be chilling the dough at all time.

Carolyn Schönafinger

That’s quite difficult in Australia when it’s very hot at Christmas time, too. I’m going to say that’s my excuse.

Andie Pilot

Absolutely. I mean, even if they don’t look like little crescents at the end, they will always taste good.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Good point. How about lebkuchen?

Andie Pilot

Lebkuchen, of course. This one, usually, it’s just translated as gingerbread. And what makes it different from the gingerbread that we’re used to in Canada or in the UK, instead of molasses, they’re using honey. The lebkuchen spice mix, so what we would call like gingerbread spice, it’s mixed a little bit different. There’s more anise flavour and a little bit less strong ginger flavour in the mix. And this is made, you get it throughout the Christmas season on St. Nicholas Day, they already have lots of lebkuchen. You can get ones that are soft, like soft cookies. Sometimes they’re filled with marzipans, sometimes not. You can get elaborate cookies that they have decorated. And sometimes lebkuchen here is like a cake, like a gingerbread cake, we would think of maybe in the English-speaking world. And that is also delicious. At Christmas time, traditionally, these were were cookies that were meant to keep for a really long time. A lot of recipes, the really traditional recipes, don’t have a lot of fat in them because they had a longer shelf life. And often they were also used as decoration, too. They had wooden presses that they could press into the gingerbread to make really elaborate scenes. Then you could even hang that on your tree or display it somewhere as decoration. A lot of the other famous Swiss cookies, things like Biberli, things like that from Appenzell, these gingerbread cookies, also had these elaborate designs and were similar to the Lebkuchen that is made at Christmas time and is made all year round. You can buy that as well.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Yeah, right. So you could have it as a Christmas decoration, and then you could eat it.

Andie Pilot

Exactly.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Instead of packing it away. Now, I think there’s also a cookie that the city of Basel is famous for. What can you tell us about that one?

Andie Pilot

Absolutely. They have this beautiful cookie. In Basel, it would be known as Änisbrötli, little cookies flavoured with anise seeds. This is also a cookie that is not unique to Switzerland at all. It’s just really beloved in Basel. Its origin is actually from the city of Stuttgart in Germany, and people there, and a lot of other people in the German-speaking world would know this cookie as Springerli. And this is the same cookie in Basel. They just add a little bit more kirsch, which is distilled cherry spirit to the cookie. What’s really special about it, of course, is that it’s white cookie and you press these wooden forms into it and it makes absolutely stunning, really intricate and elaborate designs. And the cookies, they’re really nice. They have a nice flavour and they keep also for a really long time. So lots of people will make them at the beginning of the advent season, and they’ll be giving them to their friends and family throughout the whole Christmas season. These ones you can definitely also use as decoration. You can hang them from your tree. They’re really beautiful. When I was writing my Swiss Cookie book, I was able to visit this couple who lives here in Switzerland, and their job and their passion is preserving a lot of the old wooden cookie forms that are really centuries old.

Andie Pilot

And what they do is they go to collectors of these forms, or they go to museums even that have these forms in them, and they make a copy of the old picture, the old thing that would be on them. I don’t know, it’s like cows or nativity scene or flowers or really anything. They have themes, all kinds of themes. They make a copy of that, and then they make forms out of it, and you can buy these forms from them. They produce them all here in Switzerland, and they send them all over the world, and they’re really popular with people. They have a huge customer base in the US, and their company is called the Anis Paradise. Really wonderful. And then they ship all over the world, and you can have these beautiful moulds.

Carolyn Schönafinger

So you can buy different moulds and make cookies with all the different scenes on them. What a wonderful idea. Now, I’m interested to know if you have a favourite Christmas cookie, or is it too hard to choose just one?

Andie Pilot

It is really difficult to choose just one. But I do think the Vanille Gipfeli, those crescent cookies, they are my favourite. Those ones, I usually try not to make too big a batch because I can’t really be left alone with them. They will all disappear. It’s good that they’re difficult to make. I just really love them. Of course, the taste of a Mäilanderli to me is pure nostalgia for my mother’s kitchen at Christmas time. But yeah, those vanilla people, they’re the best.

Carolyn Schönafinger

It’s great, isn’t it? How certain foods can bring back wonderful memories from even from years and years ago. And I think that’s one of the special things about Christmas, too, because often we only have certain foods or certain cookies at Christmas time. And yeah, it’s very nostalgic.

Andie Pilot

Absolutely. Yeah.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Now, where can our listeners find out more about you and all your cookbooks?

Andie Pilot

You can find me online online on my blog, blogging about Swiss food. That is helvetickitchen.com. There I have links to where you can order my books. The publisher of the books is Bergli Books, and there you can find cookbooks. But there’s also lots of other great books all about Switzerland. They publish English books that are about Switzerland, basically. I’m on all the usual places, Facebook, Instagram.

Carolyn Schönafinger

 Great. I’ll include the links to your website and Bergli Books and your social media accounts are in the show notes, too, so people can quickly link through and I encourage everyone to order a copy of, well, particularly the Swiss Cookies book in time for Christmas.

Andie Pilot

That’s super. Thank you.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Thank you very much for joining us again, Andie. It’s been wonderful to chat all things Christmas and cookies.

Andie Pilot

Thanks so much, Carolyn, and I wish all of your listeners a very Merry Christmas.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Thank you. I hope you enjoyed hearing all about Christmas in Switzerland from Andie. It’s such a special time of year, and I love that whether you’re a resident or a tourist, you can still immerse yourself in long-held traditions, like visiting Christmas markets, seeing the love and pride that goes into decorating advent windows, and of course, savouring the tastes of Christmas, from mulled wine and roasted chestnuts, to cookies. And speaking of cookies, if you enjoy baking, I encourage you to purchase a copy of Andie’s book, Swiss Cookies. It features over 40 different cookie recipes with a special section on Christmas cookies, and they all have easy to follow instructions and stunning photographs, and it’s available in English. I’ll include links to where you can purchase the book and Andie’s other books, as well as her website and social media channels, in the show notes for this episode. You’ll also find links to other helpful articles on our website about visiting Switzerland in winter. If you’d like to know more about some of Switzerland’s most popular Christmas markets, be sure to listen to episode 34, where we chatted about the Basel, Bern, and Montreux Christmas markets. If you missed Andie’s previous appearances on the podcast, have a listen to episode 31, where she chatted about Raclette, Fondue, and other Swiss foods, and episode 40, where we discussed Swiss drinks. The show notes with all the links can be found at holidaystoswitzerland.com/episode60. I’m off to bake some Swiss Christmas cookies now. Until next time. Tschüss.

Announcer

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You can see the full show notes and listen to this episode > here.