"Geburtstagsringe" and other various Birthday traditions.

[Statistikhengst]

Leave it to the Germans to be effecient, even about partying!!

As is probably the case with most of us, who really likes to put birthday candles on a cake, only to have them melt alot of wax onto the icing before they get blown out by the birthday-boy or girl?!?!?

Well, the Germans have invented a system for getting around this that can be used through your 14th, 38th or 46th birthday, depending on how you use them:

GEBURTSTAGSRINGE!

(Birthday Rings!)​

The first ring looks like this:

There's room for 8 candles, so this ring is good through the 8th birthday.

The second ring fits inside the first, like this:

There's room for 6 candles in the smaller ring, so together, that gets you to your 14th birthday.

After the 14th, many Germans use the inner ring so that each candle represents 5 years. So, the 15th birthday would be three candles on the inner ring, none on the outer.

The 16th birthday would be three candles on the inner ring and one on the outer ring, usually of a different color. And so on, and so on....

Since the inner ring can hold up to 6 candles, if you use it for every 5 years of a person's life, then it is good for the first 30 years, plus the 8 candles on the outer ring, which makes 38.

Some people switch the roles of the rings and the outer ring represents 5 years per candle, whilst the inner ring represents 1 year - and that gets you to 46 years.

I bought these GEBURTSTAGSRINGE the week my daughter was born and have used the first ring now for every birthday.

Cool, eh???


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Feel free to use this thread to record other birthday traditions that, like this one, may be a little off the beaten path.

These rings make for great gifts for people who "have everything already" btw...


best,

-Stat

 

[BDBoop]

That is so cool!

 

[Dot Com]

they overthink everything. Japanese do that too. I spoke to this guy about his $100,000 BMW hybrid ystrdy while I was out on a jog. Sadly, they did not engineer that vehicle enough.

 

[Bloodrock44]

I love German customs. Well most of them. My first tour in Germany I had a German girlfriend. So I asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she said red roses. So I'm walking to her house with roses and everyone was stopping me on the street, shaking my hand and congratulating me. I was thinking WTF? So I ran into a guy in my platoon and he said "so you're getting married?" I said what gave you that idea? He said when you give red roses to a German lady, it's a marriage proposal. I handed the roses to him and said give these to your wife, proceeded to the nearest bar and got drunk. That was the end of that relationship. True story.

 

[BDBoop]

Talk about a near-miss!!

 

[Bloodrock44]

Talk about a near-miss!!

Tell me about it cause on the next tour I met Mrs. Blood. And here's another weird custom. The evening before our wedding I'm sitting in her house having a beer or 10 with her dad and I hear these crashing noises. I look out the window into the court yard and there are probably 50 or more people and they are breaking dishes on the cement! Not just a few dishes but some of them had a whole box of dishes. One of her uncles even had a bathroom sink he smashed! Her dad said this is a German custom and you have to go sweep all that stuff up! And as I was sweeping, they were breaking more dishes! Sonsabitches. I forget why they do this. [MENTION=46168]Statistikhengst[/MENTION] will be able to tell us I'm sure.

 

[BDBoop]

I'll be looking forward to it.

 

[Bloodrock44]

I'll be looking forward to it.

And here's another custom. This is the castle in my wife's home town. As a matter of fact that is the view from her living room window. There was a restaurant there with a ballroom. That is where we had our wedding reception. Anyway, we're at the reception and my sil corals me onto the dance floor and I look over across the room and there's my bil and 3 or 4 other guys escorting my wife out the door. I said WTF (notice I said WTF a lot) and the sil says they are taking her to a bar and will buy drinks. You have to find them and when you do YOU have to pay their tab. I said a double WTF? So we drive all over town looking for them. We find them at the theatre bar across the street from the castle! Fortunately my bil paid the tab. That was the best party evuh! Stat will confirm that Germans know how to party.

 

[Statistikhengst]

Talk about a near-miss!!

Tell me about it cause on the next tour I met Mrs. Blood. And here's another weird custom. The evening before our wedding I'm sitting in her house having a beer or 10 with her dad and I hear these crashing noises. I look out the window into the court yard and there are probably 50 or more people and they are breaking dishes on the cement! Not just a few dishes but some of them had a whole box of dishes. One of her uncles even had a bathroom sink he smashed! Her dad said this is a German custom and you have to go sweep all that stuff up! And as I was sweeping, they were breaking more dishes! Sonsabitches. I forget why they do this. [MENTION=46168]Statistikhengst[/MENTION] will be able to tell us I'm sure.

[MENTION=36767]Bloodrock44[/MENTION]

Polterabend!!

On the eve of a wedding, it is customary to break dishes, it is supposed to bring good luck.

On the eve of my wedding about 12 years ago, we threw a Polterabend as well.

 

[Dot Com]

I really like the Germans democratic socialist business model where workers are guaranteed a spot on corporate boards to make the boards more accountable. Too bad we don't have that model here, then we wouldn't have the egregious wealth disparity here in MURICA.

As to the cake rings, they're pretty kewl. They aren't consumerist/wasteful society like, again- MURICA.

I served BTW so I can call this once great nation (prior to 1913) MURICA

 

[Statistikhengst]

I really like the Germans democratic socialist business model where workers are guaranteed a spot on corporate boards to make the boards more accountable. Too bad we don't have that model here, then we wouldn't have the egregious wealth disparity here in MURICA.

As to the cake rings, they're pretty kewl. They aren't consumerist/wasteful society like, again- MURICA.

I served BTW so I can call this once great nation (prior to 1913) MURICA

Though it goes OT a little, the reason why Germanys have such worker participation on boards is a direct result of the backlash to the time of Hitler. It's the same reason why, for every little Kiwanis club, they have enormous boards and gremiums that decide stuff. And why in elections, they do their damndest to take personality cult out of it. I view it as their way of saying that they got caught up by personality cult once and are not ever going to let it happen again.

You should see what school board meetings are like here....


OH, and Mr. Murica, thank you for your service to our country.

 

[BDBoop]

Talk about a near-miss!!

Tell me about it cause on the next tour I met Mrs. Blood. And here's another weird custom. The evening before our wedding I'm sitting in her house having a beer or 10 with her dad and I hear these crashing noises. I look out the window into the court yard and there are probably 50 or more people and they are breaking dishes on the cement! Not just a few dishes but some of them had a whole box of dishes. One of her uncles even had a bathroom sink he smashed! Her dad said this is a German custom and you have to go sweep all that stuff up! And as I was sweeping, they were breaking more dishes! Sonsabitches. I forget why they do this. [MENTION=46168]Statistikhengst[/MENTION] will be able to tell us I'm sure.

[MENTION=36767]Bloodrock44[/MENTION]

Polterabend!!

On the eve of a wedding, it is customary to break dishes, it is supposed to bring good luck.

On the eve of my wedding about 12 years ago, we threw a Polterabend as well.

Is there any kind of logic behind WHY it's supposed to bring good luck?

 

[Statistikhengst]

Tell me about it cause on the next tour I met Mrs. Blood. And here's another weird custom. The evening before our wedding I'm sitting in her house having a beer or 10 with her dad and I hear these crashing noises. I look out the window into the court yard and there are probably 50 or more people and they are breaking dishes on the cement! Not just a few dishes but some of them had a whole box of dishes. One of her uncles even had a bathroom sink he smashed! Her dad said this is a German custom and you have to go sweep all that stuff up! And as I was sweeping, they were breaking more dishes! Sonsabitches. I forget why they do this. [MENTION=46168]Statistikhengst[/MENTION] will be able to tell us I'm sure.

[MENTION=36767]Bloodrock44[/MENTION]

Polterabend!!

On the eve of a wedding, it is customary to break dishes, it is supposed to bring good luck.

On the eve of my wedding about 12 years ago, we threw a Polterabend as well.

Is there any kind of logic behind WHY it's supposed to bring good luck?

Yes, [MENTION=31258]BDBoop[/MENTION], there is:

Polterabend ? Wikipedia

"Dem Brauch des Porzellanzerbrechens liegt das volksetymologisch gedeutete Sprichwort: „Scherben bringen Glück“ zugrunde. Der aus dem Töpferhandwerk stammende Begriff „Scherbe“ bezeichnete ursprünglich alle irdenen Gefäße, nicht nur die zersprungenen[3]. „Scherben bringen Glück“ bezog sich somit darauf, dass viele Gefäße im Sinne gefüllter Vorratsbehälter eine glückliche Fügung für den Besitzer darstellen. In früheren Zeiten zogen die Verwandten, Nachbarn und Freunde durch das Dorf, meist mit Stöcken und Peitschen gerüstet um Lärm zu machen. Dieser Lärm sollte Geister und Dämonen vom Brautpaar fernhalten"

"The custom of breaking porcelain stems from the etymological saying: "Fragments bring luck." The German word for Fragment, "Scherbe", comes from the field of molding and meant all earthen vessels, not just the ones that were broken. So, the saying "Fragments bring luck" reffered to the idea that many vessels, like filled containers, would represent a moment of luck for their owner. Before that time, relatives, neighbors and friends would go through the town, most of them with sticks and whips, in order to make noise. This noise was supposed to keep ghosts and demons away from the soon-to-be newlyweds"-

Translation mine, off the cuff.

In other words, the fragments actually represent containers filled with things that should make the newlyweds' life rich and fullfilling.

In the USA, esp. in the breadbaskets states like Kansas and Nebraska, Polterabend was really, really big.

 

[Statistikhengst]

And just to add to that, corollary to that, it is also custom to give the Brautpaar (newlyweds) mismatched porcelain as a gift, usually from the last Polterabend before this one.

Meaning, if people decided to smash old porcellain, they would always keep just one (one saucer, one cup, one dish, one plate) in reserve to mix with other people's left over, not-smashed porcellain in order to make a mix-and-match gift for the NEXT newlyweds.

And so the cycle goes on and on...

 

[BDBoop]

That is very cool!