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Are the Italians like the Germans? Are the Danish like the Spanish? Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not. You can find out more about the differences and the similarities of the European countries in this article.

COMMON EUROPEAN CULTURE

The culture is the norms that we each live by. It's the traditions and how we do stuff and behave in our everyday life. We might think that the culture completely changes when we go to another country in Europe, and of course there are some differences too, but we actually have a lot of similarities.

Cultural Codes in Europe

There are many common cultural codes in Europe, for example are we very fond of alcohol. Most of our holidays, traditions and celebrations include drinking, for example: Christmas, New Year’s Eve and when you finish school, but what is special is the way people greet each other. In Spain the most common way of greeting your friends and family is to hug them and give them a kiss on each cheek, even men if they have a close connection. However, in Denmark it is very uncommon to kiss someone on the cheek when you greet them.

The way that the students address the teachers also fluctuates from country to country. In Germany they address their teacher in a formal way by saying “Herr Mayer” or “Frau Müller”. Danish students address teachers only by their first name.

Something we have in common is that soccer/football is the most practiced sport in every European country and each year the Union for European football associations host a tournament with the best teams of each European football league, called The Champions League.

Christmas celebrations

An important part of culture is how we celebrate Christmas. We have tried to cut it out for you, so it is easier to understand, what the differences and similarities are.

In Denmark Christmas is celebrated with the family, usually from around 3 pm until midnight. The whole family gathers and helps with the cooking, the children watch Christmas cartoons, and play games to make the time go by faster. Especially the children have a hard time waiting, because after the traditional Christmas dinner with roast pork, roast duck, browned potatoes, red cabbage and brown sauce, they get to open their presents. After dancing around the Christmas tree and singing hymns of course.

In France Christmas is celebrated with the family too, but the typical meal is different. They start with an appetizer with champagne, afterwards, seafood as a starter, and in particular oysters and smoked salmon. Then, as a main dish, poultry, especially capon, turkey or even duck. Then the cheese accompanied by a salad and finally, the traditional yule log, ice cream, pastry, chocolate or fruit. The gifts are opened on the morning of December 25, although sometimes they are opened the night of December 24 at midnight.

Christmas is the most important festivity in Italy and Italians start to celebrate it from the beginning of December. That’s very different than from the rest of Europe. During the Solemnity day of Immaculate on December 8th, they usually decorate the plastic Christmas tree and decorate the houses with the nativity scene. Some days before Christmas, an old woman called Santa Lucia gives presents and candies to children, but she is not the only one who likes to do that, because relatives also use to offer something. On Christmas day, they stay at their houses with the family, then they go to the church and have a big lunch together. During this day, they eat a lot of typical dishes as tortellini, spaghetti or lasagna and as dessert they use to buy panettone and pandoro.

People in Germany are used to go to Christmas markets during Christmas time and drink mulled wine. Many Germans bake cookies in the Advent season and decorate them. On Christmas eve many people go to church and have dinner after that.

Food culture

Foods are also a big part of culture, and especially in Christmas time as you just read. It depends on where you go and when you go there. In Spain they are very known for Paella. That’s a dish with different types of fish and shellfish on top of rice with spices. It is all mixed in a big pot and then you eat from that. The reason this is so popular in Spain, is because it’s easy to get fish in Spain. The sea is all around and therefor you can get fresh fish.

In Denmark they also eat a lot of fish, but not the same way as in Spain. In Denmark they especially eat marinated herring. That’s one of the favorites in Easter. Some of the similarities of the food in the northern part of Europe is meat.

In Germany they eat Schnitzel almost as a weekly dish. In Denmark they also eat a lot of meat, but not the Schnitzel. They eat a thing called Smørrebrød. That’s bread with butter and then a lot of meat, and maybe a bit of lettuce to make it healthy.

As you see we are not that different in Europe. We have our own way of doing some traditions, but overall, we are a united Europe.