Merry Christmas in German: Frohe Weihnachten

Merry Christmas in German is Frohe Weihnachten!, said "FROH-uh VY-nakh-ten", and it works everywhere German is spoken, from Hamburg to Vienna and Zurich. Froh means "glad" and Weihnachten means "Christmas", from a medieval phrase for "the holy nights". Fröhliche Weihnachten and Schöne Weihnachten are just as correct. Below are Christmas wishes in German ready to copy, informal and formal; then what the greeting means word by word, the regional versions in Switzerland, Austria, Bavaria and the north, the words of the season, and how often German film and television subtitles say them.

Updated 28 October 2026 · 16 min read

Christmas wishes in German, ready to copy

German has three ways of saying "you" in a wish: dir to one person you call du, euch to several people you call ihr, and Ihnen to anyone you call Sie, one person or many. Family and friends get du and ihr; colleagues you do not say du to, clients and strangers get Sie.

For family

For friends

For colleagues and clients, with Sie

Ihnen takes a capital letter because it is the polite "you"; ihnen in lower case means "them". Choosing between du and Sie is covered in formal and informal you.

Religious wishes

The second is the Duden dictionary’s own example for Weihnacht, the singular, which it marks as elevated, a word for cards and hymns rather than conversation.

Frohe Weihnachten, word by word

• Froh is "glad, full of joy". It goes back to Middle High German vrō and Old High German frō, which the Duden says first meant "lively, quick".
• Weihnachten comes from Middle High German wīhennahten, from the phrase ze wīhen nahten, "in the holy nights", the holy nights of midwinter. Weih- is the root of weihen, "to consecrate".

The -en of Weihnachten is a plural ending: the word was once "nights". German Wiktionary notes that in a hundred medieval examples collected by the Brothers Grimm, 62 were the dative plural wîhen nahten. Today the Duden treats Weihnachten as a neuter singular noun (Weihnachten war sehr kalt, "Christmas was very cold") with one exception: in a wish, the plural is the norm, which is why it is frohe Weihnachten, with the plural ending -e, not frohes Weihnachten.

Why frohe and not froh? A German greeting is the second half of a sentence that has been cut off. Frohe Weihnachten is short for Ich wünsche dir frohe Weihnachten, "I wish you a merry Christmas", so the adjective takes the ending it would have as the object of wünschen. The same is true of frohes neues Jahr, which German Wiktionary describes as shortened from "ich/wir wünsche(n) dir/Ihnen/euch ein frohes neues Jahr", and of einen guten Rutsch: masculine, so guten, not guter.

Saying it: FROH-uh VY-nakh-ten (IPA [ˌfʁoːə ˈvaɪ̯naxtn̩]). The w is an English v, ei is the "eye" of English, and ch after a is the rasp of Scottish loch. The final -en is barely a syllable.

Frohe, fröhliche or schöne Weihnachten?

The dictionaries do not rank these. The Duden lists "schöne, frohe, fröhliche, gesegnete Weihnachten!" together among its examples, and German Wiktionary gives fröhliche Weihnachten, frohes Fest and frohe Feiertage as synonyms of frohe Weihnachten. Anyone who tells you that one is more correct than another is giving you a preference, not a rule.

Besinnlich means "thoughtful, given to quiet reflection", and besinnliche Weihnachten wishes someone a calm, reflective Christmas. It is a written word: the subtitles below say it hardly at all.

Capital letters. Weihnachten is a noun and always has a capital. The adjective has one at the start of a card, Frohe Weihnachten!, and inside a sentence the Duden allows both: jemandem Frohe oder frohe Weihnachten wünschen.

Merry Christmas in Swiss German, Austrian and other regional German

Standard German Frohe Weihnachten is understood and written everywhere. Under it, the German-speaking world divides in its words for the season, and the clearest maps of that are in the Atlas zur deutschen Alltagssprache (AdA), an online survey run since 2003 by Stephan Elspaß (Salzburg) and Robert Möller (Liège), which asks people not what they themselves say but what is normally said in their town.

Switzerland

In German-speaking Switzerland people speak Swiss German but write mostly in Swiss Standard German, formal writing and much informal writing alike, so Frohe Weihnachten is right there too. Spoken Swiss German is a different matter:

• Wiktionary gives schöni Wiehnachte and frohi Wiehnachte as Merry Christmas in Swiss German (Alemannic).
• The Alemannic Wikipedia calls the festival d Wiehnacht or Wiehnecht, a feminine singular, and notes Wyhnächte in the dialects of Baden, Schaffhausen and Swabia; the same Wikipedia spells it Wienacht elsewhere, as in Furchtbar fröhlechi Wienacht, its title for the film A Merry Friggin’ Christmas.

Swiss German has no official spelling, so every one of these is someone’s honest spelling of their own dialect: Wiehnacht and Wienacht are the same word. If you are writing to a Swiss friend in Standard German, remember that Switzerland does not use ß: it is Grüsse, not Grüße.

The Swiss Christmas words that differ from Germany’s, all from the AdA maps:

• The presents are brought by the Christkindli, the Swiss diminutive of Christkind.
• Christmas biscuits are Guetzli (less often Gutzi or Güetsi), from gut, "good".
• St Nicholas’s dark companion on 6 December is the Schmutzli, a ragged, dirty-looking figure.

Austria

Austria writes and says Frohe Weihnachten like Germany, but the season is its own:

• The Christkind, often Christkindl, brings the presents, not the Weihnachtsmann.
• Christmas biscuits are Kekse, said without the final -e, and in the diminutive Kekserln.
• St Nicholas is accompanied by the Krampus, a horned figure who punishes naughty children; the AdA traces his name to krammen, "to seize with claws".
• The Advent wreath is an Adventkranz, without the s that Germany puts in Adventskranz.
• The Christmas market is often a Christkindlmarkt, which the Duden marks as Bavarian and Austrian.
• The Duden notes that Weihnachten as a plural noun outside of wishes ("die Weihnachten waren verschneit") is found chiefly in Austria and Switzerland.

The New Year is wished differently too. At midnight eastern Austria, Vienna above all, says Prosit Neujahr; the rest of Austria says Gutes neues Jahr, in full.

Bavaria and southern Germany

Bavaria shares much of Austria’s Christmas: the Christkind, the Krampus with St Nicholas (in Old Bavaria), the Christkindlmarkt. The tree is a Christbaum across the south. In the dialect, as the Bavarian Wikipedia spells it, Christmas is Weihnochtn and the tree a Kristbaam; written Bavarian has no fixed spelling either, so take those as one way of putting the sounds on paper.

Where northern Germany does things zu Weihnachten, "at Christmas", the south does them an Weihnachten: the Duden marks zu as chiefly northern and Austrian, an as chiefly southern.

Northern Germany and Low German

In the protestant north and east of Germany the presents come from the Weihnachtsmann, Father Christmas, on Christmas Eve. In Low German (Plattdeutsch), Wiktionary gives the greeting as Frohe Wiehnachten!, with Wihnachten as another spelling, Christmas Eve as Hilligavend and New Year as Niejohr.

Christkind or Weihnachtsmann, Christbaum or Tannenbaum

The AdA adds two details. The Christkind’s territory includes the traditionally Catholic west of Lower Saxony, far to the north. And the Weihnachtsbaum is spreading at the expense of both Tannenbaum and Christbaum when the maps are compared with Jürgen Eichhoff’s Wortatlas der deutschen Umgangssprachen of 1977. The tree row leaves Austria and Switzerland blank because the AdA’s description of that map speaks only of Germany.

Contrary to a popular story, Martin Luther did not invent the Christkind to replace St Nicholas: the AdA notes that both were already gift-bringers in his time. What the Reformation did was reject presents from a saint, and the Christkind gained ground; the secular Weihnachtsmann spread only from the middle of the nineteenth century.

The words of the Christmas season

Heiligabend is the day that matters. German Wiktionary describes it as the eve and opening of the Christmas festival, and it defines Bescherung, the giving of presents, as the handing-out of Christmas presents on Heiligabend. So in Germany, Austria and Switzerland presents are opened on the evening of the 24th, not on the morning of the 25th, and the AdA says the same: the Weihnachtsmann comes an Heiligabend.

Bescherung has a second, ironic meaning worth knowing: Da haben wir die Bescherung! is "Now look at this mess!"

Guten Rutsch and Frohes neues Jahr

Before midnight on 31 December, Germans wish each other Guten Rutsch!, or in full Guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr!, "a good slide into the new year". After midnight it becomes a New Year wish proper, Frohes neues Jahr, often shortened to Frohes Neues. The AdA found that the Guten Rutsch has spread across the whole German-speaking area, though in the south it is relatively new: an Austrian newspaper was still complaining about it as a slangy fashion in 1993.

Where the Rutsch comes from is disputed, and the sources set out both accounts:

• A journey. Rutsch was used in the nineteenth century for a trip, and Guten Rutsch as "safe journey" is recorded in northern German dialects from 1825. On this account the wish is for a safe journey into the new year. The Duden calls this the likelier explanation, and the AdA finds it the more convincing.
• Rosh Hashanah. The other account, from Siegmund A. Wolf’s dictionary of Rotwelsch (German underworld slang), takes Rutsch from the Hebrew Rosh of Rosh Hashanah, "head of the year", through Yiddish and Rotwelsch. The Duden mentions it as a possible influence, rosch meaning "beginning". Against it, the AdA notes that the traditional Jewish New Year greetings do not contain the word rosh, and that the Jewish New Year falls at a different time of year.

German Wiktionary dates the wish to about 1900.

Which New Year wish where. The AdA maps that as well. At midnight the north says Frohes neues Jahr; Rhineland-Palatinate, the Saarland and Hesse raise a glass to Prost Neujahr; the south of eastern Germany and Franconia say Gesundes neues Jahr, "healthy new year"; further south it is Gutes neues (Jahr), mostly shortened to Gutes neues in Baden-Württemberg and Switzerland.

Stille Nacht

The best-known German Christmas carol was written in Austria. Joseph Mohr, a young Catholic priest, wrote the words of Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht in 1816 at Mariapfarr, and Franz Xaver Gruber, a schoolteacher and organist, set them to music for the Christmas Eve mass in Oberndorf near Salzburg, where it was first sung on 24 December 1818. Both words and tune are in the public domain. The first verse, as it is sung today:

The English "Holy infant, so tender and mild" is a free translation: Mohr’s baby has curls.

The other best-known German carol, O du fröhliche, "O you joyful [Christmas time]", is the work of Johannes Daniel Falk, who wrote it in Weimar in 1815 or 1816 for the orphans in his care, to the tune of the Sicilian hymn O sanctissima.

How often do German films say them?

We counted the words of the season in German film and television subtitles, about 156 million words of dialogue.

Each figure is how many times the word is said per million words. These are single words, so every count includes whatever else the word means, which is what the last column is for.

What the counts show:

• The Weihnachtsmann wins on screen, by far. He is said 32.6 times as often as the Christkind, though the AdA’s map gives the Christkind the south and west of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Most of these subtitles are translations of English-language films, and their Santa Claus becomes the Weihnachtsmann: this is a translator’s choice, not a map of who brings presents in Munich.
• Weihnachtsbaum is the screen’s Christmas tree, ahead of Tannenbaum and Christbaum: 7.8 times as common as Christbaum. That matches the AdA’s finding that Weihnachtsbaum is spreading.
• Frohe is said more than fröhliche, 1.5 times as often. That includes every frohe Ostern and every fröhliche Menschen, so it shows the two adjectives, not the two greetings.
• Besinnlich is a word for paper. Besinnliche turns up seventeen times in all those millions of words of dialogue. People write it in cards; they do not say it.
• The plural rules. Weihnachten is said 31.1 times for every Weihnacht, the elevated singular.

Weihnachten comes out at 66.3 per million here, the same figure as on the nine-language page, because both count it the same way. German says it less than other languages say their word for Christmas partly because German builds compounds: Weihnachtsbaum, Weihnachtsmann and Weihnachtsmarkt are each counted as words of their own.

Learn the language behind the greeting

Frohe Weihnachten is a sentence with the verb cut off; the rest of German is learning to put it back. Verbavia teaches German from the most common words up, a lesson a day, free on the web.

The everyday greetings, from Hallo to Servus and Moin, are in greetings in German. The same Christmas greeting in eight other languages is in Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in 9 languages, and Spanish has its own page of card wishes in Merry Christmas in Spanish.

French has its own page of card wishes, with the Québec versions, in Merry Christmas in French.

Merry Christmas has its own page in Italian, Chinese and Portuguese too.

Sources

• Duden online: Weihnachten (etymology from ze wīhen nahten; the plural in wishes; the plural noun in Austria and Switzerland; zu and an Weihnachten; "schöne, frohe, fröhliche, gesegnete Weihnachten"), Weihnacht (elevated; eine gesegnete Weihnacht), froh (etymology; Frohe oder frohe Weihnachten wünschen), fröhlich, besinnlich, Fest (frohes Fest!), Festtag, Rutsch (guten Rutsch, both origins), Heiligabend, Bescherung, Christkind, Weihnachtsmann, Christbaum, Tannenbaum, Weihnachtsbaum, Advent (and Adventkranz in Austria), Adventskranz, Adventskalender, Nikolaus, Nikolaustag, Weihnachtsmarkt, Christkindlmarkt, Glühwein, Plätzchen, Guetzli, Stollen, Weihnachtsfeiertag and Stephanstag.
• Wiktionary (German): Weihnachten (the Grimms’ 62 of 100), frohe Weihnachten (pronunciation and synonyms), frohes neues Jahr (shortened from ich wünsche dir … ein frohes neues Jahr), guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr (dated to about 1900; Wolf against Küpper, Neuberg and Röll), Heiligabend, Bescherung (on Heiligabend), Weihnachtsfeiertag (Christtag, Stephanitag), Stefanitag and Christkindl.
• Wiktionary (English): the German and Alemannic translations of merry Christmas (schöni Wiehnachte, frohi Wiehnachte) and the Low German Wiehnachten (Frohe Wiehnachten!, Hilligavend, Niejohr).
• Elspaß, S. & Möller, R. Atlas zur deutschen Alltagssprache (AdA), Universities of Salzburg and Liège: Christkind (who brings the presents, and the Luther story), Weihnachtsbaum, Plätzchen/Keks(e)/Guetzli, Begleiter des Nikolaus (Knecht Ruprecht, Krampus, Schmutzli), Neujahrswünsche and Silvesterwunsch (Guten Rutsch, its spread and its origin).
• Alemannic Wikipedia, Weihnachten (d Wiehnacht oder Wiehnecht) and Furchtbar fröhliche Weihnachten; Bavarian Wikipedia, Weihnochtn and Kristbaam.
• Wikipedia: Swiss German (no official orthography; no ß in Swiss Standard German), Silent Night (Mohr, Gruber, Mariapfarr 1816, Oberndorf 24 December 1818, the German text, the public domain) and O du fröhliche (Falk, Weimar, O sanctissima).
• Lison, P. & Tiedemann, J. (2016). OpenSubtitles2016: Extracting Large Parallel Corpora from Movie and TV Subtitles. Proceedings of LREC 2016. aclanthology.org
• Dave, H. FrequencyWords: frequency lists from OpenSubtitles 2018, content licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. github.com. The counts are computed by scripts/frequency_weihnachten.py in Verbavia’s repository and printed from its output rather than typed.