T minus 24 hours (I should be so lucky)

Today is Christmas Eve and that means that tomorrow is Christmas Day and I will probably be woken at some ungodly hour by over excited children - I'm praying they sleep longer than the 6.45 that I'm currently awake at (don't know why I'm awake so early, it is so frustrating don't you think, to go to bed looking forward to not having to get up early only to wake earlier than you normally need to? I think my subconscious was fully aware of all the things I need to do today before going to bed and so got me up extra early - thanks!)

German children get their presents on Christmas Eve, sometime between 5/6pm church and going to bed, and ours will get theirs, like all British children on Christmas day - I really need to find out the Santa angle on this...in Britain he doesn't come to your house until the children are asleep and using the Norad tracker http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html you can see where he is...so how do German parents explain this? Jasmine (aged 8 - a believer) tried to explain the Christkind to me - a baby brings presents? Surely not? I clearly need to interrogate a grown up - preferably one with children.

Anyway, the Germans find it equally confusing that our children have to wait till Christmas day for their presents (but it's what they're used to, and anyway, what else is there to do on Christmas day?) Jasmine's teacher even said to me 'but don't they wake up really early?'...hmmm, he has a point!

When we moved to Germany we didn't make any obvious decisions about keeping or not keeping traditions, but having spent 40 odd years in one country it kind of goes against the grain to change things, so what we do is adopt and merge, so our Christmas looks like this:
- Christmas Eve after our main evening meal the children both get one present
- Christmas day they get the rest
- we no longer send Christmas cards, apart from to our nearest and dearest (Germans don't do cards, at least not in the way that the Brits and the Yanks do - too commercial maybe)
- wont watch the Queen's speech - but then we never have (will probably get British citizenship revoked now)
- will have Christmas crackers -had to smuggle them in, you don't get them here
- will have Christmas cake (have to ice it today, would have done it yesterday but was 1 packet of icing sugar short) but will also have Stollen and Baumkuchen (literally 'treecake'...)
- have had the tree up and decorated for almost 2 weeks, whereas most Germans will be decorating theirs just before the present giving (they must have a very busy evening)
- will have Christmas/figgy pudding after the turkey (another smuggled item - thanks mom) I'm not sure what the natives have for pud...

And on that note I guess I should crack on with today's list of 'things to do' (ice cake, make stuffing, prep veggies, go to Lulu's to collect tombola prizes (all 3 of them!!) and eat waffles, make gulasch - tonight's tea which needs to be ready and waiting for when we get back from church after watching Jas being 1st shepherd...we might go up in flames, a bunch of atheists in church on Christmas Eve!

A busy day ahead, but all good fun.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Calm down, drama averted

Almost a major drama today.

Averted only by my dear darling Simon, a true knight in shining armour - although he did have an ulterior motive!

But I digress, first the back story...

Today is the last at school (finally) before 2 weeks of lie-ins for Christmas.
Jas went off at 7.35 and then we had to be at school for 'adventsingen' (school singing of Christmas songs, I don't think they were carols per se - not as we know them anyway) this was lovely, Jas has the music teacher for her class teacher this year and next and so is becoming more involved in all things musical, which is a good thing (as long as she doesn't decide she wants to take up the violin, the drums or the harp - nice sound, huge instrument to lug about) as Jas seems to have inherited the Evans' musical gene (Si's parents are VERY musical) I wouldn't describe my side of the family as 'musical' as such, although my dad has a very good ear (I think that's the phrase - I'm sure to be corrected if it isn't!)

So, adventsingen, very pleasant, and then up to the music room (which Herr Bartnizky (music teacher) clearly treats as his 2nd classroom) for the full performance of the Emperor's New Clothes, we saw the 1st half at the Laternefest (see December 2) but today was the full thing.
And very entertaining it was too, complete this time with Jas as the child who points out that the Emperor (or rather the Kaiser in this particular version) is actually not wearing any clothes, she made us proud!

Anyway, the drama...we'd just taken our seats for the performance, I took my gloves off and noticed my engagement ring catch on the lining of the glove, I turned the ring round and noticed that emerald from the centre was missing.....aaaarghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Simon and I have been married 20 years this year, and I've been wearing that ring ever since the proposal...so it means a lot, to say the least.

I kept my calm and felt in the glove, no, no emerald there.
Pocket? No, no emerald there.
Floor at my feet? Still no missing emerald.
When the performance was over I took the opportunity to look further in the room (although it was unlikely as I'd had my gloves on when we entered the room) still no emerald.

I waited until we got home to tell Simon the bad news, he took it well surprisingly and then asked when I'd noticed it missing. So I said in the school, but added that I'd felt my ring snag on my clothing earlier, while I was still in the house, so we started searching...I went straight upstairs where I thought I remembered it catching, no emerald, but then I heard a shout from downstairs - Si had found it!

It's here now, staring at me from the piece of card I've sellotaped it to for safe keeping, until after the holidays and I can get it into a jewelers and get it fixed.

Phew, am calm again now! Can relax and enjoy Christmas - when I've iced the cake and made the stuffing and collected the turkey and prepped the veggies and and and....

Non slip Germans

The snow from Sunday's blizzard is gradually going, helped by no snow yesterday and rain early this morning, so now instead of lovely white crunchy snow we have nasty slippery grey slush. It's been lethal out there today.

But I think the Germans have another weapon against bad weather, or maybe it's just part of their well organised nature, I'm convinced that they all wear invisible crampons on their shoes that I can't see (because they're invisible) or perhaps they just have non slip feet? Or another idea, maybe they all have an amazing sense of balance (an inner gyroscope maybe? or maybe they're related to Weebles)...I just don't understand why, when it's as slippery as a really slippery thing out there on the roads and pavements, I fall over and they're all upright.

Why is this? It's not like I had silly shoes on - I had my grippiest walking shoes on and was on the flat as well and still I ended up flat on my arse in the middle of the nasty slushy road, I shall have a big black bum in a day or so...

In town itself, which is where we were heading when I fell on my arse, there seemed to be no-one slipping and sliding around (apart from me that is). We'd planned to walk down the hill for coffee and a spot of last minute Xmas present shopping, but decided it was too dangerous & took the car instead, a good job, I think I'd have ended up in hospital!

I started looking at people's footwear to check, but there was no visible sign of crampons (so if they're there, they must be invisible) and lots of them, if not most of them had normal shoes on. I even saw an old guy coming down our hill (1 in 7 gradient according to my dad, and it's an excellent sledging hill according to my son) with normal shoes on. There must be a trick to it that I, as a non native, do not possess.

Germans seem to me to be non slip, while little old British me is as slippery as an eel!