Ah, so another Monat gone, and plenty of experiences to share. I am just going to stop apologizing for failing to write on this thing. I am sort of dissapointed in myself, because I was going to use this blog as one of the key ways with which I would remember this year. I know I will forget so much (vor allem being the language) einigermaßen schnell, but I can't bring myself to actually sit down and spend time writing. Every second is precious, and I could spend every second trying to write some poetry down about the preceding second, but as you see, the paradox would make it a beautfiul poetry of writing poetry. There was a man who once said along the lines of, "Doing something is easy, experience is easy, but saying something about it, now that's something," and to be honest, I think that's a load of Mist (German Mist, not English mist). I am going to try to just experience my time here, and when I have a Tagebuchschreibensdrang, then ja, mach mal.So Merry Christmas! Or as the Germans say, Frohe Weihnachten! I must say, Christmas in Germany was a pretty beatitful time, and it has a lot of neat features that my American Christmas doesn't have.
Where do we start?
Ah, yes, the Christmas markets.
If you ever happened to take a vacation nach Deutschland, I would either do it at the end of September (so you could richtig enjoy Oktoberfest in München) or during December, because during December every relatively large city hosts wonderful Weihnachtsmärkte that are just wünderschön.
"What exactly is a Christmas market, Mr. German?"
Oh, wise question, fellow inquisitive Amerikaner, a Christmas market is a large gathering of people eating delicious food, buying cute German Kleinigkeiten (roughly translated to trinket), and slowly becoming intoxicated by the wondrous joy sogenannt, Glühwein. Glühwein is a mulled wine served at 72 or 73 degrees Celcius (you do the math) usually flavored with cinammon, melted sugar, and not to forget, rum or some similar sort of liqour. I have always wondered how Germans survive the Winter here, and now I am certain that the solution lies in the cup. In December, it can drop to freezing temperatures here (in some places it is seldom above 0 degrees C) but if you are clutching on to a finger burning cup of alcohol, the coldness becomes ultimately egal ("it does not matter"). My first time Glüweining was with the Manatee in Osnabrück, and as much as I do not like talking about alcohol on this page, I must say, it tastes deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelicious. There is a special kind of Glühwein that I must recommend call Feuerzangebowle, which takes the taste buds to new levels and there is even a German Christmas film with the same title where an old man decides to go back to high school (even if you do not understand it, which I personally did not its a pretty darn good laugh, among other typical German Christmas films and episdodes include Dinner for One, which I demand you watch this instant). Typical stomach fillers (tried to find a phrase meaning both food and drink) at the Christmas markets include piping-hot crepes with Nutella inside, roasted chestnus, burnt almonds (the best thing on Earth by far), and of course, beer. Christmas markets run throughout the entire month of Dezember, and have good live music and is just generally a wonderful way to spend time with friends during the holiday season.
Now that you, my fellow German in the making, understand the core of einer richtigen deutschen Weihnachten, I can now move to explaining more of the cultural traditions of the most wonderful time of the year. I believe the opinon can be change based on personal belief or experience, but I consider the first day of December, the first day of Christmas, as in, the ABCs 25 Days of Christmas starts showing all the classics, Christmas songs are played (too) frequently on the radio, the Christmas trees and decorations go up, and "Merry Christmas" starts to become a usable greeting and farewell. In Germany, it is similar but is distinct in: the Tannenbaum is never put up before the 23rd of Dezember, "Frohe Weihnachten" is only an acceptable greeting on the 25th and 26th (thereby, called the 1st and 2nd days of Christmas), no houses have lights put up, and above all, the only Christmas song played on the radio is Wham's "Last Christmas." Now I have to take a step off from the main path (as my normal neurotic writing style operates) and clarify: The German people are OBSESSED with that overplayed, overremade song. I mean, they play it at least 18 teams a day, everyone knows the words by heart (impressive considering, you know, they are German). I know we listen to this song an exordinate amount of times, too, but this is one piece of American culture that Germany took and not only ran away with, sondern flew off the to the moon. Jetzt weiter geht's.
One very nice German tradition that I have to mention is Plätzchen backen. Every single German household, without question, spends on evening in Dezember rolling out dough and making star cutout cookies. Not a very large thing, but a small event that I really enjoyed with my host family. In my family, and most American families that I am aware of where Santa visits, the presents are opened on the 25th of December, which gives the kids the apprehension and the excitement of waking up early to see what goodies lie under the Baum. In Germay, I would say that most families do all of the gift unwrapping on the evening of the 24th (so called, "Heiligeabend" = "Holy Evening" also the name for Christmas Eve). In our family, Henrik and I were told to wait upstairs while the gifts were being placed under the tree, after which a bell was rung, and it had began. It really was a beautiful moment. I must say, in the past month, it seems as if my relationship with my host family has gotten exponentially better, and I couldn't wait for Christmas, because I knew it would be a wonderful experience to share with them. The four of us just stood together, opening up presents at our own paces and giving the proper hugs following.
I gave Henrik a Chicago Bulls Derrick Rose jersey, a charging dock for Playstation 4 controllers (which he got despite the worldwide sellout, and because my host mother told me that he would get one, I bet him 5 Euro that he would get one, he took it on, and now he has a PS4 and I have 5 Euro, actually 1 Euro because we have been making a series of continuous bets including watching all the Rambo films and taking guesses on how many people John would kill by the end of the movie, which is quite interesting going from Rambo First Blood, where he theroetically kills no one, to John Rambo, the fourth, in which he kills in excess of 250, but thats a story in itself), and Ocean's 11, 12, and 13. I gave Mary, my host mother, the first Diary of a Wimpy kid book and a free voucher to a piano concert in my room. And to Hermann, my host father, I gave an African carved face thing, John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, a calender, and travel book over America. I must say, all of my gifts completely overwhelmed me and made me oh so happy, including but not limited to: Lederhose, that's right Lederhose, a Mario Götze's Deutsche Nationalmannschaft jersey, an oppurtunity to play the organ in a church of a neighboring city, a beautiful factbook (did you know that the capital of South Korea, "Seoul" means "capital city" in Korean or that Bugs Bunny's orignal name was "Happy Rabbit"), and for someodd reason a large photograph of me and a wild fat sea animal that is related to the elephant.After the gift opening, we had a wonderful German typical-for-my-host-family meal of Hawaiian toast, which is sliced bread with ham, a slice of pineapple, melted cheese, and a cherry. Then we spent the rest of the night having fun with our gifts and just enjoying ourselves, not to mention a good four of PS4 (which is every bit as beautiful as I imagined it to be). On Christmas Day, Henrik and I spent the entire day with the PS4, then we skyped my family back home, and I forced my family to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which they found to be hilarious. On the second day of Christmas I got up extremely late and we went to a nice restaurant where we feasted on duck and then spent the rest of the day with family at the house and not to mention once again, even more PS4.
So was my Christmas, no snow, no gimmicks, just a simple and quick two days. Do I prefer my Christmas to the Germans'? Yeah, probably, and part of that is because I really do miss my family and our traditions back at home. But soon I will be back with them, and as much as I do miss them, the time goes way too quickly here and I already see myself on the flight back. So I just got to keep going, and make the best of my time.
Frohe Weihnachten zu allen, und zu allen, eine Gute Nacht!
