A Very Merry Christmas

Well, it's over. Months of planning, miles of paper, yards of tape and innumerable trips to the Mail Room : Christmas has come and gone again.

Joseph and Ella were thoroughly excited by the idea of Santa and his reindeer coming to

our house, and left out far too many treats for one jolly old elf to eat all by himself, and Rudolph would certainly have been too heavy in the tummy to do much flying after the giant carrot Ella found for him. But Santa never disappoints, so they woke to crumbs on the plate, and reindeer bite marks* on the nub of carrot.

Santa sure did leave plenty of presents requiring delicate and/or time consuming assembly this year, but everything was so well received that I could hardly say it wasn't worth the millions of steel cable twist ties and plastic restraints I struggled through. We had Spike the Ultra Dinosaur, a remote controlled beast who plays fetch and lumbers around the house, slipping a little on the tiles, a collection of toy power tools that would make Uncle Jack drool, and a great GeoTrax airport with a plane that flies on a loopy plastic track for Joe. Ella was happy to find a ride-on caterpillar, the same Little Tykes vanity that Samantha had when she was little (a surprise find at a base yardsale, and a steal for $15) and a Little People princess castle dollhouse, complete with dragon. Will got a french press for making German coffee, a European tea pot, a new leather wallet and the complete Chronicals of Narnia, as he's never read any of them but enjoys the movies. My gifts haven't arrived yet (military postal service being what it is) but I'll let you know as soon as I find out :)

One of Will's soldiers brought his wife over for Christmas dinner - and video games, which I suspect was really the plan all along. I made my first ham, which was a huge success (thank you, Alton Brown!) and we had greens, giant parker house rolls (I misjudged the size of the muffin tins), black eyed peas, glazed carrots, mashed potatoes and parsnips (it's a German thing), green bean casserole (which I did NOT make), arroz con pollo (which I did make) and fried okra. All in all, a very yummy southern dinner, with the obvious exception of the chicken and rice, a Puerto Rican dish Will insists we have for every holiday. Sweets were plentiful, and I'm afraid we'll be sending most of them to work for the soldiers to munch on there - I don't think I can handle that many here in the house.

Also, a few interesting notes on Christmas in Germany, as I haven't been able to write about them so far:

- Here, Santa does not come Christmas Eve. He visits good children on December 6th, and leaves small toys, snacks and apples in the boots they place outside their front door that evening. If the children have been naughty, they get switches in the boot for their parents to use. :S

- Christmas Eve is the night of the Christ Child, when an angel comes and brings gifts to children, representing the gifts of the wise men to the baby Jesus. Children yell up the chimney to give their Christmas lists to the angel, but telling Santa has become popular in the last decade. The Germans are starting to adopt a lot of American and English traditions, but they also hold on to their own, so for instance, when you see Santa walking around a market or store, he is accompanied by a woman dressed as an angel, usually with a long, blonde wig.

- German Christmas trees don't have the same lights as ours - theirs look like little candles, about two inches tall, and clip on to the ends of the branches. Germany is the home of the Tannenbaum, and the trees traditionally used real candles. Obviously this is dangerous, but older Germans still use real wax candles on their trees, and you can buy the special candles and holders at any grocery store.

- Recycling is mandatory in Germany. I'll write more about this later, but for now: As we opened and assembled toys and gifts this year, we had to sort the rubbish into piles: wrapping paper and cardboard boxes, plastic (which has to be removed from the cardboard boxes, in the case of those clear windows) and twist ties and restraints, metal bits and foil wrap, and even the tape from the paper had to be removed and tossed into the residual can, as it can't be recycled with the paper. It feels good to recycle, but man, it made cleaning up after gift-opening such a pain :)


*Does anyone know what reindeer's teeth look like? I just winged it, as she's two and has no frame of reference for these things.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!