In Saxony's mountains (Erzgebirge), people have traditionally crafted Christmas and Easter decorations and figurines out of wood. These decorations have become very famous throughout the world, and people come from all over to visit the towns where these decorations are made. Tourists can go into the woodworking shops and watch craftspeople design and shape the wood into beautiful decorations. There are two main decorations... the Pyramide and the Schwibbogen.
In order to learn more about this tradition, I visited Seiffen, a town that is called "the Christmas town," located in the mountains where there is lots of snow and small, charming villages. In this idyllic landscape, neat wood stacks surround orderly homes with smoke rising from the chimneys against a backdrop of fresh snow.
I am not sure why these communities have this tradition, but people told me a few possible reasons. First, people told me that in the winter months, when there was not as much to do in the mines, people started making things out of wood to keep themselves busy. Another reason that craftspeople may have begun to make these decorations was because there is so much wood in the mountains.
