Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you. It's Year of the Ox. I have no idea what that means, but I will have to look it up later. I technically have until Chinese new year anyway.
Christmas everywhere is different and Germany is no exception. The big day is the 24th. In the US, the big day is the 25th. That's when families visit each other, call long-distance relatives, and so on. The 24th is kind of a "prep" day for the big day. Here, the 24th is a big family dinner and gift-giving evening. And the bonus- both the 25th and 26th are official holiday. A dream I would have loved when I worked at Nordstrom.
In Germany, the Christkind (baby Jesus) brings the gifts. And at about 4 pm. When I was little, Santa brought the gifts and we would either open them after mass (midnight no less) or the next morning. Michael and I have reached a cross-cultural compromise. Santa fills the stockings with a small present and the Christkind brings the bigger one or two presents. And, yes, the kids only get two or three presents each. And none from us.
We hadn't really reached a decision on the actual when to open the gifts since, until this year, the kids were too small to do anything but wait until Christmas morning. A cruel idea, according to Michael. And to me, since I like to sleep in and the kids usually let us.
This year was a little different. We went to mass at 4 pm, like always, and came back and had our dumplings for dinner. The kids went to bed and at 11 pm we rang the doorbell and pretended that Santa and the Christkind were here. We woke up Jay and Nils and came downstairs as fast as we could, but we just missed Santa and the Christkind. We even went outside, pyjamas and all, to look. Of course, someone drove by at that exact moment and saw our reindeer PJs and that our kids were up at 11 pm. Oh well.
We let Jay and Nils open their presents from Santa and the Christkind and then they went happily up to bed. They slept until almost 9 am (yipee!) and waited a long time until asking to get dressed and go downstairs for breakfast and the last two gifts- from Marijo (Nils' godmother) and a neighbor.
Now that Christmas and the New Year are over, the prep for Jay's birthday parties begins. Yes,
parties, not
party. More on that another entry.
days later all that snow and cold weather began and we could have saved a bunch of money! Oh well. They loved sledding. Jay even had to go back for more and begged to learn how to ski. We sent him to a Taufkurs. Basically, it's an introduction course to see of your kid is ready for real ski lessons. Jay is. We decided to do more lessons in the late fall and go on a ski holiday over Christmas break next year. Maybe Nils will be ready by then too. Oh, and me too. Yikes.
party on his birthday. Oma and Kurt came, as well as the usual suspects: Emma and family, Alexander & Katarina, Tristan & family. It was more a play date with cake and hot dogs, but it was fun. Jay wished for cupcakes, so I made a cupcake tree. Actually, they're carrot muffins with cream cheese frosting, but he calls them cupcakes. Hey, if they buy it.....
it could, in my opinion, get a little colder and that would be nice. Um, I didn't mean -12! And a couple of inches of snow paralyzed the city. What I wonder is this: I live on a street with a fire station. Why didn't we get plowed? Strange.
