Oktoberfest is, at the simplest, a German celebration of a royal marriage originating from the 1800s.

Oktoberfest has continued since then and has grown to be large and festive, with lots of food and drink (a lot of beer), as well as traditional games, costumes, crossbow competitions, and tons of music and dancing.

German Teacher Frau Guthrie remarked that “Oktoberfest is one of the biggest festivals in the world and people travel from all over to Germany just to experience this celebration. It highlights native costumes, traditional German food, dancing and singing.”

On Friday, November 4th, the German language classes celebrated this with their own version of Oktoberfest (a little later than it would typically be celebrated).

Guthrie has had this tradition of celebrating Oktoberfest for as long as she has been teaching at this school. “I have been at Broomfield for 10 years. I have had an Oktoberfest every year, except our “on-line” year for Covid,” she said.

The celebration started off with a traditional German dance called the Fliegerlied and then the Ententanz (or Chicken Dance), which did not originate in Germany, but has still become a tradition at Oktoberfest.

After that, the class had some food that is often found at German celebrations: bratwurst (kind of like a sausage), and Apfelstrudel (a desert food).

Then, the class participated in games and activities. While the games and activities weren’t all traditional, the students enjoyed them all the same.

“For my Oktoberfest, we make pretzel dough the day before, and students go home and bake the dough to bring in pretzels the next day for the celebration. We even have a pretzel contest for the best pretzel that all German Club and German classes vote on,” said Guthrie about their activities.

It was a short celebration, but the students and teacher had lots of fun and likely learned a lot of cool things about the German culture and celebrations.

Oktoberfest is a wonderful tradition here at Broomfield High School.