Frohe Weihnacht!

I suppose December would be a good time to explain some of the German Christmas traditions we're experiencing here. On December 6th they have a tradition that if your put your shoes out in front of your door at night, and if you have been a good little boy or girl, that Sankt Nicholaus (Saint Nicholas) will put goodies in your shoes. So, as instructed by our temple presidency, ReNae and I  put our shoes out by our door and sure enough, the next morning he left us goodies!!! 

Then, on Christmas Eve the Weihnachts Man (Santa Clause) comes to fill stockings hung "By the chimney with care" while the children are anxiously waiting in their bedrooms. Then they open all their presents Christmas Eve. After the presents are opened they wait until midnight when the Christ Child comes to their home, representing the greatest of all gifts. (We could maybe take a lesson from this midnight welcoming-of-Christ.)

Then December 25 and 26 are holidays when friends and families come together for food and visiting and drinking. They do a lot of drinking here during any holiday and in between.

Our apartment is too small for a regular tree, so we decided to decorate our window seals with traditional German things - including an Schwibbogen on the right and the tree is a form of the same thing.  

The dishtowels are a gift from our friend Sue Schroyer.  



We are getting together as temple missionaries on Christmas for a dinner and we'll try to help each other from getting too home sick. We actually do get feeling somewhat like a family here, though. We spend 8 hours a day with each other and you do indeed get quite close. But, then again, our families are irreplaceable. We also sing in the ward choir and get to learn all the traditional, American, religious, Christmas songs (and some others) with foreign words. That is really interesting and different!

They have a great big display called a Weihnachts Markt (Christmas Market). It is located in the center of town and reminds me of our 4th of July booths. It is fun to walk around and taste the different Christmas traditional foods and listen to the music and tempt ourselves with all the crafted items.

A very tall Traditional Christmas Pyramide

One of the many booths at the Christmas Market

It is cold here but it is still fun to walk through the Market

A 1/2 meter long Bratwurst!

We have bin hier about six months now, and feel ve ar gettink pretty used tu sinks hier. Sum of se peoples in our familie haf sed dat since ve got hier in Jermany, dat our English hat bin schlipn a leetel. We haf twyed to imers ouselfs in dis languish, und ve don't tink it haf hat a lot of affects on our schpeeking oder schpellink. Vat du u sink?