December Travel News
Hi from Rick: 20 Years of European Christmas
It was Christmas Eve, and I was frustrated. My TV crew and I had spent most of the evening scrambling around the half-timbered Austrian town of Oberndorf, hoping — but failing — to capture an authentic performance of its famous holiday carol, "Silent Night."
As the story goes, an Oberndorf priest went out on Christmas Eve, 1816, to bless a newborn baby. He was so moved by the stillness of the evening, he wrote a poem about it. That poem was set to a simple tune…and soon, "Stille Nacht" was performed for the first time: in a humble village church, with just two singers and a guitar.
Wanting to capture this experience for our public television viewers back home, we bounced between Oberndorf's taverns and squares…but everywhere was a muddy, touristy mess, with underwhelming music and not a hint of the magic we had naively hoped for… Read more
