Well, the first and most important news is that this past weekend it snowed - oh probably a whole inch and a half!! The girls were thrilled - Karissa woke us up in a panic because she just had to get outside. Fortunately the Americans prior to us left us two snow discs. There is a pretty steep hill in the apartment complex that kept them quite busy. Also, they got to construct their first real snowman - his name is Greg - very German don't you think? Of course, Dayna continues to be stubborn about wearing warm clothes - they make her "look fat' - ugh!! Note, her miserable face!! Think she'll ever get it?
As I mentioned in my last post - Germans LOVE Christmas but it is in a whole different way than Americans. It is very much about traditions and seems to be a lot less about the presents. Unfortunately, like America it is not really about the birth of Christ.
Let's start with the traditions:
Saint Nick visits the children on the eve of Dec. 6th and fills their clean boot left outside the door with fruit, candy and trinkets (see the picture of the girls enjoying this added batch of goodies!). That's pretty much his sole role. He doesn't get any credit for the gifts on Christmas, those are from family. The Germans think we Americans are nuts for making Santa look so good!! We're not sure how we're going to work around the whole "what did Santa bring you for Christmas?" conversation that the girls might have with the German kids. We're hoping that their German skills aren't that good and we can chalk it up to the language barrier if they get some weird looks from the other kids.
Christmas markets are held in every town. Each market designs their
own mug and you can buy a hot spiced wine drink call gluhwein and get the souvenir mug. The market is held outdoors in the old downtown of the city where
there are usually cobblestone streets, fountains and really old
buildings. It really is pretty neat unless you go on the weekend and
then it's packed! Each town has their own "flavor" for their market. Some are more artisan oriented and others are more regular merchandise. One that we visited was the Esslingen Weihnachtsmarkt (pronounced vy nocks market) which is really unusual because it has a Medieval theme. The town is pretty with an old Medieval wall and towers. All of the people selling things were dressed in Medieval garb and they had shows and parades. We decided to forego buying Jay the authentic Medieval outfit however, we thought it might make him act a little barbaric! Instead we opted for the Lederhosen like the "shepherd".
Advent and Advent calendars are huge here. Every child has one. Legos even makes them and everyone else that wants to get in on the $$$$. One big way that Christmas has been commercialized here!
The Christmas trees are all real and you don’t put them up until Christmas Eve morning! The girls and I walked up to “the farm” this afternoon where they were selling them. They are mostly from the Black Forest and are the saddest looking things I have ever seen!! I wouldn’t want to look at one of them for a month either!! You'll see Karissa and Flat Stanley - the barn on the far right is over 500 years old according to the lady farmer!
The schools call Christmas – “Christmas or Weihnacht”- amazing!! The kids even have a Christmas church service during school at the neighborhood church. We sometimes forget that what the American Pilgrims sought to escape was a state run church. It still exists here and every child goes to religion class (at 3rd grade they switch to a Protestant or Catholic curriculum – prior to that it is general Christianity). With a huge influx of Muslim Turks over the last 30 years I’m not sure how they react to the school mandating these classes. We are in the most wealthy elementary school so we don’t have any Turks to my knowledge. Our neighbors from China are atheist but their daughter goes to the Protestant religion class at school with Karissa! There isn’t a choice. Boy, that wouldn’t fly in the U.S.!!
Other than in the downtown area at the Christmas markets, there are really very few Christmas lights on homes or businesses. I guess it's an American tradition and could result from sky high electricity costs here.
To celebrate Christmas most people go to some kind of Christmas Eve church service late afternoon or early evening, eat a festive meal with their immediate family, then open gifts. Christmas day might include meeting with extended family or just staying home. They also observe “Boxing Day” – Dec. 26th – ALL the stores are closed (YIKES – no After Christmas Sales!!!) and they might visit with family or friends again. We’ll have to stock up on food this year as the stores close at noon on Christmas Eve, are closed for Christmas Day and Boxing Day and then the next day is Sunday – stores closed again!! Practically four whole days without a trip to the market!!! That will be a first for me! At any rate, no one really knows for sure what the origin of Boxing Day is!! Quite funny!
Most businesses are closed for the whole two weeks. They are renovating the apartments next door and the construction crews won’t even be working! Definitely different than America!
Karissa's class made a bunch of paper lanterns that were really neat and sold them outside the bakery along with German waffles with powdered sugar, cookies, hot drinks and some other handcrafts. The kids sang, played violins and flutes too. They earned over 760 Euros (about $1200) to send to an orphanage in Africa!! It is not unusual to see people out in the streets playing music this time of year and is really a neat tradition that I've enjoyed. As far as I know the teachers are expected to play an instrument and they use it in the classroom a lot. (Dayna sings German songs regularly in the shower!)
We’ll probably have more commentary once we’ve actually seen Christmas!
We are feeling our first wave of homesickness, especially the girls. Christmas just isn’t the same and I think they are feeling it. We have a surprise trip planned for them the 3rd week of their vacation (yes 3 weeks off!!). We’re going to have to keep them busy which can be hard since everything is closing; even the public library is closed for 3 weeks!! Hopefully we’ll get some snow and that can wear them out. We plan to take them to the next town to ice skate and possibly an indoor water park that is nearby (most likely along with 10,000 other people anxious to get the kids out of the house!!)
More later!
