Christmas comes but twice a year.

Sorry for the long pause, these holidays and visitations have sure kept me busy and away from screens. My first five days of Christmas have been wonderful and I hope yours have been, too.

I met Joshua at the airport on the evening of the 22nd, brought him home, and then immediately forced him into a full German cultural immersion via several hours walking around the Christmas markets downtown with Sarah. It was sparkly and the hot mulled wine (and gingerbread-rum hot chocolate with whipped cream...) kept us warm. Delightful!

The very next day we left the city to go stay with my dear dear German family in Detmold, about two and a half hours away. It was soooo wonderful to be in a home situation again with a family and sofa and silly dog. We spent a lot of time drinking tea and catching up the first evening. On the morning of the 24th, we explored cute little Detmold and visited the giant statue of Herman the German in the afternoon. We climbed to the top to have a look around from above, as called for by tradition.




Christmas Eve Eve we went to church for what I gathered was a service of lessons and carols. It was fun to try and identify the different old German hymns and to hear them accompanied by a full brass choir. In Germany and much of Europe, Christmas Eve is the BIG day, not the 25th like in the States. Thus after church we had a big meal together and then opened presents around the beautiful tree, which isn't supposed to be lit or seen until that night. This was then followed by watching old family videos of adorable little Jonas and Laura.


It was a very special and comforable evening, though I have to admit that one of my favorite parts was when Josh and I were flipping through channels on the TV in the guest room before going to sleep and found Mr. Bean's Christmas, which we watched with much joy and delight. How ironic and frankly stellar that this favorite Christmas tradition presented itself to us in another country, almost like it didn't want to be forgotten about.

We slept in on the 25th before another big Christmas dinner that afternoon with the grandparents. The menu included goose with Trappi's famous gravy, potatoes, some type of German dumpling, carrot salad, and, of course, red cabbage. A fine cultural experience that I was only able to partially experience as a non-meat eater. We had a quiet evening which was followed by a gloriously large breakfast before we Americans ride-shared back to Hamburg in the early afternoon of the 26th. Another thing about Christmas in Germany is that after Christmas Eve, there are not one, but TWO official days of Christmas that follow. They had kindly invited us to come celebrate with other parts of the family on Xmas #2, but I had to be back for rehearsal the next day.

I was particularly happy to be able to use my German extensively during this time as I haven't been able to use it much since then. Josh doesn't speak German so there was much translating involved. (However, he did pick up a few words.. Hooray!)

Some other fun pictures came from our December 28th adventure to Luebeck and Travemunde with Kassia and her Dad. It was my third trip to the medieval city of Luebeck, but the first in which it didn't rain or give us terrible weather in general. That made the meandering about ever so much better. I'm quite fond of this small city of old churches, Weihnachtsmaerkte, and dinosaur marzipan.



Travemunde is a pretty coastal town on the Baltic Sea that (I believe) is still part of Luebeck. I hadn't been this far north in Germany before and was excited to poke my fingers and toes in a new body of water.

Josh and Kassia, on the other hand, were more excited to poke a dead jellyfish that had washed up on the shore.




We caught a train home as the sun set, much like in the movies, I suppose. The next day, yesterday, Josh and I spend several hours at IKEA. After finally purchasing a cheese grater, I hung out in one of their several cafes reading my Goethe homework as Joshua lived out his wildest IKEA fantasies. (Swedish meatballs were consumed and not by meeee.)

In other news, it's snowed again here in Hamburg, turning the gray into white... much like in LOTR, now that I think of it. : ) In a few minutes we will have reached the last day of the year. When did that happen?

Also, please note the beauty of this lemon-cranberry-pistachio-white chocolate holiday biscotti that Joshua and I baked yesterday. Mmmmm. I just love beautiful deliciousness.