Holidays part 1 (Weihnachten/Christmas)

Despite the tremendous amount of time recently available to me the desire to blog vanished over vacation so now it's time to elaborate a bit on what happened with all that free time. So I'll sit here in bed (before midnight I might add), sipping hot milk with honey, and listening to Philipp Poisel who you can check out on Grooveshark for some really laid back German music.

So here’s a recap of my Christmas. We could say it started at about 1pm on Friday the 24th. I began the trek towards the church on the far side of town (small town mind you) with Flugelhorn in hand, Christmas music playing, snow gently falling, and a good dose of optimism in my heart. I decided against the bus because it was nice to just be out in the snow. Upon arriving we practiced for an hour for the service and then just spent time talking and being jovial, drinking tea and the like. We made it to the service, which went off with out a hitch. Some regular worship, along with some Christmas songs and a teaching. After lots of hugs and Merry Christmas’ we all ran off to our houses to celebrate. I went back with the Bösling family who include Charlotte and Lars (pictured below) as well as some more siblings. We got to their house in their big redvan, and then waited up stairs for a bit. When we heard the bell we all ran into the living room only moments after the Christ child had escaped out the open window (they have a lot of open windows here). We just stood there for an awkward few minutes staring at the Christmas tree with lit candles instead of a string of lights. Finally we dove into the presents. I got a scrap book from the 6 friends at church who are roughly my age with a lovely picture of them all on the first page. Their 10 year old, Mirko, got a remote control helicopter which has provided loads of entertainment. We were starving by that point so we sat down to dinner which was Raclette. We pile potatoes, peppers, mushrooms, Raclette cheese, and probably other stuff too on these little metal trays that you put into the Raclette grill (google image search it). Then we cooked little pieces of chicken and shrimp on the top of it. It’s like the dinner table version of roasting hot dogs around a fire. Afterwards we sat in the living room and chatted and had a good time. I learned a lot about the family, the church, and Germany in general. The next day was Christmas, which isn’t quite as significant in Germany as the previous day. I went over the Böslings again around noon to make apple crisp. I didn’t have any measuring cups to work with but it turned out to be delicious anyway, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Desert is after lunch. So it got to be 2:30 and a handful of relatives and roommates etc. made it the Böslings house to partake. We started with the most delicious tomato soup I’ve ever tasted. Then we moved on to the red sauerkraut, potatoes, turkey, gravy and...stuffing cornbread pudge balls? or something like that. Anyways, it was all rather delicious (lecker in german). Once we had made it through the apple crisp and coffee and recovered a bit we went to see Narnia in theatres in 3D, in German... The voice overs they used were pretty convincing with the exception of the snobby cousin Eustace. They definitely gave him a snobby voice but sounded more like a cartoon than a real person. Here’s the trailer in German. Anyways, went back the Böslings and talked lot’s with Mr. and Mrs. and had a great time and more coffee. Sunday the 26th was the final day, it involved venison, lot’s of guitar, small children, and more spending time with people. There it is, that’s Christmas in Germany. New Years post to come soon.