Christmas, New Year's, and Everything in Between

If you thought Christmas was intense in America, try it in Deutschland aka Weihnachtsland.

The festivities started way back in November with erste Advent, i.e. the fourth Sunday before Christmas proper. I guess since Christmas Day was on Sunday this year, this was the year with the longest possible Adventszeit. At any rate, Berlin was full of adorable Christmas markets off to which Justin dutifully marched with Julia and Eli in tow whenever I needed a break. Katharine and I did tag along sometimes, though we usually made our Christmas market visits during school hours with friends. Some highlights: the carousel at Potsdamer Platz, bungee trampolines and the ferris wheel at the Scandinavian Christmas market, the real spinning wheel at Domane Dahlem, Nutcrackers, the cute little gingerbread-looking houses all the shops were in, sizzling sausages, sugar roasted almonds, candied chocolate apples, traditional German woodwork and handicrafts, and a general atmosphere of Christmas cheer. Having spent the first eight years of our marriage topping off our Christmas decorations with a plastic star from Rite-aid in Provo which made the top of our tree bend and sag in unseemly ways, I determined that our year in Germany would be the year of a respectable tree topper. I got it our last excursion out from one of these stores. She's just beautiful!!!

In addition to Christmas markets, we had plenty of Christmas parties. School parties, Kita parties, ward parties, Institute parties, attempted my institute class parties....and there's a reason those are plural! Eli's Kita performed a few songs they had been working on the past few months. One of the songs recounts in rhyme something from a fairy tale and then asks the audience if they know that fairy tale. Eli sang a solo

Wer sitzt im dem Kaemmeline
Spinnt das Stroh zum Gold so fein?

And we answered, with too much of an English accent, "Rumpelstilzchen!" to which Eli protested, "Nicht auf Englisch, auf Deutsch!" We are very happy with her German progress.

Christmas Eve is the center of German Christmas festivities. Justin as ward choir director had full responsibility for the Heiligabend Andacht, a devotional which Justin found rather similar to a Christmas Mass, candle-like light bulbs and all, but turned out well. Justin sang a solo of O Holy Night (and my accompaniment was just as magnificent as Ms. Heather Prusse's, I assure you) and I sang a duet of What Child is This as the closing number. Justin, at least, did well enough on his number to get an encore request from the family with whom we spent Christmas Eve.

Ah, Christmas Eve. Olaf and Antje Wenke, a wonderful German couple in the ward, invited us to their home for dinner and presents. Since they don't have Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner is the big eating holiday for Germans. Antje served a delicious array of meats, cheeses, and breads as well as juices, tomatoes, boiled eggs, cookies, and of course fantastic German chocolate. I made her silhouettes of the girls and she more than paid back our efforts! It was a lovely, lovely evening.

Christmas Day we had only sacrament meeting delayed by two hours and then after some much-needed naps for the girls we headed to the home of some South African friends in the ward for a ham and turkey dinner with another American family. Hugh and Vivien are the exact age of my parents and just delightful. We had a great time talking with them and their two girls home from University.

With Justin's big 30th birthday coming up I didn't want to go wrong, so I foisted the responsibility for making it special on the able shoulders of some of his favorite friends. In other words I set up some Skype appointments between the 26th and the 31st and it went off almost without a hitch. Thanks to all you who called!!! It was so nice to catch up and see your friendly faces. In between reconnecting, Justin managed to finish chapter 2 of his dissertation. 250 pages down, lots more to go....

Way back in November I decided events would be the way to go this Christmas, so I got the girls tickets to The Nutcracker and Swan Lake and the opera Hansel and Gretel. I took Eli to a reduced version of H&G that featured the actual consumption of the witch's gingerbread house by all the kids in the audience; Justin and Julia came back from a full-length version singing menacingly about a broom. The Nutcracker was a slight disappointment, I must say--there wasn't even an orchestra--but Swan Lake was fabulous. Eli cried at the end, she was that moved. I've never seen another version, so I guess I can't give an educated critique, but I thought it was amazingly well done.

I came home with Julia and Eli from the ballet at almost 11, and that was just one of many late nights. The next morning Julia offered the family prayer before Justin went to work. "We're grateful we don't have anywhere to go today and that we can just stay home," she said. After we said "Amen" Justin turned to me and asked, "So what time am I taking Julia to the opera today?" "The opera?! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"

So we stayed inside the next two days, but broke out with a fury for Justin's birthday. It was a beautiful, sunny (!), blue-skied day, so we went down to the Ku'damm to join the other cool kids walking up and down the streets, stopped long enough by Hard Rock Cafe to be shocked at their prices, grabbed a smoothie at the Chiquita fruit bar across the way instead, then headed to Legoland to let our inner and outer children run wild. (Again. We have year passes.) Then we spent Jared and Mitcee's Christmas present on Der Gestiefelte Kater, which we thought would be much more true to its origins than it was, so good thing we watched it in English instead of German. We came home a little late for Justin's last Skype call, but while Justin chatted, I reneged on my promise not to feed my sick husband anything sweet for his birthday. (What's a birthday without something sweet?) That is, I tried to. After wandering for an hour and a half to the east of us to find an open store where I could get some ice cream, all I could show for my efforts was a Snickers bar from the Lotto and Liquor store. Having exciting encounters with all the laymen's fireworks, though, and finding Justin still chatting when I returned, I grabbed Julia and Eli to go on a hunt to the west of us. That hour was more fruitful--we returned with three delectable pieces of Tiramisu and a few Pfannkuche for the girls from a little cafe just around the corner. Now I know why Nephi prayed before he went hunting. After that we were so tired, we just went to bed, which I guess isn't the only reason we didn't head back downtown for the big Neujahrfest (that was right where we were earlier in the day...if you're interested Silvester beim Brandenburger Tor is the real party in Berlin, which I thought this was, but then it was actually Potsdamer Platz) but it was the most proximate.

Gesundes Neu Jahr, Liebe Familie und Freunde!