regional customs
Antarctic Christmas with gifts from home
The nine-person overwintering team poses in front of the Neumayer III research station in Antarctica. photo
© Markus Baden/AWI/dpa
Christmas at the other end of the world: The crew at the Neumayer III research station in Antarctica is celebrating with a festive menu and two Christmas trees. Among them there will even be gifts from home.
Even at the end of the world there will be a German classic to eat on Christmas Eve: goose or duck with red cabbage and dumplings. The chef at the Neumayer III research station in Antarctica, operated by the Bremerhaven Alfred Wegener Institute, will also offer a vegan dish for the currently 46-strong team, said station manager Aurelia Holzer (44) of the German Press Agency.
In the meantime, two plastic fir trees have also been set up. Until recently, however, there was no Christmas spirit. “I brought gingerbread spice from home, but I never baked it with it,” said the doctor from the southern Black Forest. After all, the typical darkness of the Advent season is missing in the Antarctic summer. “It’s bright day and night here,” said Holzer. For Christmas Eve, minus five degrees Celsius are predicted – “terribly warm”. In the Antarctic winter it was sometimes down to minus 43 degrees Celsius.
Aurelia Bäume is part of the nine-person overwintering team that will remain in Antarctica for one year until the end of January 2023. Although a supply ship only comes by once a year, the team does not have to do without gifts from home: “My family packed the gifts for this Christmas in September 2021, which then went into the sea chests,” reports Bäumer. There is also weighting: the residents of the Neumayer III station made the gifts themselves. Penguin and snowflake motifs were particularly popular.
Antarctic Blog