Christmas Traditions in Vienna: From Advent to Ice Skating

Vienna is a wonderful, festive place to celebrate Christmas. With lots of twinkling lights, tons of Christmas markets, concerts, and traditional foods, there’s a lot to love about Vienna at Christmas.

We spent a month in Vienna during Christmas and New Year, learning about local customs, and deciding which of our family traditions to change or keep for the season.

In this post, we’ll cover some of the traditions you’ll see in Vienna over the holiday season, as well as some of the logistics for celebrating, from getting a Christmas tree to eating Christmas Eve dinner.

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Christmas Traditions in Vienna

There are many Christmas traditions in Vienna, including advent calendars and wreaths, Christmas trees, and nativity scenes. Austrians embrace the holiday season, and you’ll find lots of family-friendly holiday activities from mid-November through the Christmas holiday.

The Advent Season

Advent is the start of the Christmas season in Vienna. Most families have advent calendars and an advent wreath where a candle is lit each Sunday.

Cookies of many different varieties are baked at home, friends meet at Christmas markets, and the social calendar is filled with balls and concerts.

Most of the holiday activity in Vienna happens before Christmas. While the city gears up again for an epic New Year’s Eve Celebration, Christmas day and the week after is rather quiet.

Christmas Lights

Vienna loves to decorate for Christmas. The most famous decoration is the large red bow that lights up the corner of the department store Popp & Kretschmer.

The lighting of this bow is an unofficial signal that the holiday season has arrived. You can find the bow at Kärntner Straße 51.

The Graben, the main pedestrian walkway through the city center is covered in chandeliers and swaths of white lights. The Stephansdom is lit up with colored lights, and festive touches are added throughout the city.

Ball Season

November brings the start of Ball Season to Vienna. Yes, as in floor-length gowns, and dancing the waltz type of balls! These are black or white-tie events, and tickets can be hard to come by.

Over the season more than 450 balls are thrown at various venues across the city, usually sponsored by a specific professional guild. These parties cover both the Christmas holiday and the Carnival celebrations.

The Vienna Opera Ball in February is the most glamorous of all the balls in Vienna. With a strict dress code, the doors open at 20:40, there is a Midnight quadrille, and the ball does not conclude until 5 am the following morning.

The Opera House is stunning, we recommend taking a tour to see the inside of the Opera House and learn more about its programming including the famous ball.

Christmas Markets

Christmas markets (Weihnachtsmarkts) are a huge part of the holiday season in Vienna. There are many different Christmas markets, mostly in the city center.

We don’t recommend trying to visit every market, but we have our favorite Christmas markets for ambiance, food, and of course, shopping.

While you may be hoping to snag a hand-blown ornament, or other souvenir on your visit at the Christmas markets, most locals visit the markets to socialize and enjoy the food and drink.

From the famous mulled wine Glühwein to baked potatoes, we’ve put together a guide to our favorite Christmas Market food and drink.

Most of the Christmas markets close on December 23rd, while a few transform into New Year’s Markets.

Many Christmas markets include a calendar of events, from live music and entertainment to children’s crafts. Our kids made marzipan snowmen at the Schönbrunn Palace Christmas Market.

Ice Skating

One of the largest Christmas Markets is in front of the Rathaus, the Vienna City Hall. Here you’ll also find a large skating rink. Ice skating is a great way to enjoy the holiday spirit in Vienna.

The rink is not one large, open, oval, but several in a wooded area, with connecting skating pathways that wind through the trees.

There are skate rentals and helmets available on site, as well as lockers. For kids, there’s a separate smaller rink to the right of the main rink if you are facing city hall. It’s a bit hidden behind the huts of the holiday market.

This rink is free for kids and includes the animal shaped helpers for those who are learning to skate. It means that kids have their own space to stumble around, and not be in the way of the adult skaters.

Ice Skating at the Rat Hause is one of our recommended things to do in Vienna in Winter. We had so much fun skating, then taking a break for hot dogs and kinderpunsch.

Christmas Concerts

There are lots of Christmas concerts around Vienna during the holiday season. We highly recommend a concert at St. Peter’s Church, a small, but stunning stone church, especially when decorated for the holidays. It does get cold inside, so dress warmly.

There are also concerts at the Stephansdom, the Hofburg Court Chapel, and more.

St. Nick, Krampus and ChristKind

In Austria, December 6th is St. Nicholas Day. On this day, both St. Nick and his scary buddy Krampus visit homes to see who has been naughty and who has been nice.

On St. Nicholas Day, children wake to see whether St. Nick has put treats in the shoe they left by a window or door overnight. St. Nick dresses in a long coat, with a white beard and a tall bishops hat.

He also visits schools and towns, bringing sweet treats like gingerbread, peanuts, or chocolates. Often children have to sing to St. Nicholas to get the treats.

In some villages, Krampuslauf is celebrated, where people dress up as Krampus in a village parade. Krampus is a beast with long horns who traditionally runs through the streets chasing naughty children with a large stick.

Christmas Eve in Vienna

Christmas Eve in Vienna is called Heiligabend. Most typical Austrian families set up a nativity scene and trim the Christmas tree on December 24th. The tree lights are turned on for the first time, then the family gathers to sing Christmas carols.

This is a time for family and celebrations, so you will find most stores, including restaurants are closed, and the streets are very quiet. You may find some Christmas carolers going door to door on Christmas Eve.

A large family meal is prepared and shared. In the Catholic tradition, Christmas Eve is a fasting day, so the meal is after sundown and traditionally carp, rather than meat.

There is also a midnight Christmas Mass, which often ends with the singing of Silent Night, which was composed in Salzburg, Austria.

Austrian children believe it is not St. Nick, or Santa Claus, who brings the presents on Christmas Eve, but the Christkind, or Christ Child, in the form of an angel. This baby leaves presents under the tree, which are opened on Christmas Eve.

Take a Christmas Tour

Want to learn more about Austrian traditions? Consider a Christmas market tour that visits 4 different markets and helps you pick out what to taste and try. Drinks and snacks are included in the tour, so you’re sure to find a new favorite!

This is a three-hour, group walking tour, limited to 20 or fewer people. If you prefer a private tour, this tour gets great reviews.

Book Now: Christmas Market Walking Tour

Planning Christmas in Vienna

If you’re planning to visit Vienna at Christmas, you might be wondering how it all works and what you should expect. We spent a month in Vienna, enjoying all the fun of Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve, so we are here to take the stress out of planning your holiday in Vienna.

Does it Snow in Vienna at Christmas?

Maybe! Snow is not guaranteed in Vienna at Christmas. When we visited, we had a few dustings of snow, but mostly it was just cold. If you take a day trip out to Salzburg, you will see the peaks of the Alps covered in snow.

Arranging Christmas Eve Dinner

If you would like to eat out on Christmas Eve, be sure to book a reservation in advance. Many hotels will offer a prix-fix meal.

We had a delicious traditional Austrian meal for our Christmas Eve dinner at Weißgerber Stube starting at 1:30 pm. There were very few other people there, and the restaurant closed at 3:30.

We opted to celebrate a more traditional American Christmas where we opened gifts on Christmas Day, and prepared our own Christmas Day meal.

When we stayed in an Airbnb with limited cooking utensils and dishes, we could buy partially made dishes (like meatballs and mashed potatoes) from Ikea and heat them in our apartment without difficulty.

We followed up our meal with a slice of traditional Sacher Torte, Vienna’s most famous cake. You can order a full cake ahead of time from Hotel Sacher to enjoy over the holidays.

Sacher torte is a chocolate cake with a layer of apricot jam and a dark chocolate coating. Traditionally it is served with whipped cream, and a cup of Weiner Melange, which is coffee with steamed cream, and then topped with foamed milk.

Getting a Christmas Tree

In most residential areas, you will see street vendors set up selling freshly cut Christmas trees in the weeks before Christmas. Most families do not set up and decorate their tree until Christmas Eve, so they are not designed to last as long as Americans may be used to.

Trees are sold with a simple wooden cross to hold them up. If you are concerned about the tree drying out, you can spritz it with water. The tree should last without additional water from when it is brought inside on Dec 24, until it is taken down on January 6, which is Epiphany, or Three Kings Day.

Ornaments, garlands, and special chocolates with a loop to be hung on the tree are available in most grocery stores and pharmacies. At the Vienna Christmas Markets, you will find lots of options for souvenir ornaments and decorations, often marked with the name of the city or the palace where the market is located.

Traditional decorations include a star tree topper, and a nativity scene is placed nearby.

When you are ready to dispose of your Christmas tree, you will find small signs posted in residential areas, usually in a small park or other green area, telling you to leave your tree. Often there is a small pile of discarded trees there to alert you to the spot. The trees will be picked up by the city and disposed of.

Plan Ahead for Christmas Closings

Typically Christmas is celebrated in Vienna on Christmas Eve with family, at home. You will find most stores and restaurants are closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and also December 26th, which is St. Stephen’s Day.

We also highly recommend doing any grocery shopping ahead of the start of the holiday. Stores will typically close early on Christmas Eve and be closed until the 27th, so you’ll need a few days of food stocked up in your apartment, or rely on whichever restaurants and bakeries are open.

Some restaurants close for the entire time between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, so if you have a place you really want to visit, check ahead, and plan to go before Christmas.

Also keep in mind that most shops are closed on Sundays, all year round, and during the week many close earlier than we expected (think 6 or 7 pm).

Public Transportation on Christmas Day

Very little is open on Christmas Day in Vienna, but Ubers, buses, and trams will still run if you need to move around the city. Vienna is a very walkable city but also has a great public transportation system that is easy and safe.

Keep in mind that public transportation is free for children during any school holidays, including the Christmas holidays.

There You Have It

Vienna, Austria is an amazing place to spend the Christmas holidays. There’s so much to do, and the city is just layered with Christmas spirit, from holiday lights to classical music concerts.

Austrian Christmas traditions are fun to learn about, and easy to partake in, allowing you to craft whatever holiday experience means the most to you.

We fell in love with the city, and love visiting Vienna any time of year. If you are interested in the history of this grand city, consider taking a historic walking tour.

Don’t miss our full list of fun family-friendly things to do in Vienna in Winter.