But I am getting ahead of myself. Christmas really starts on the 24th here and then there are two days following, so the holiday is three days long. Heilige Abend, or holy evening, is Christmas eve. And in the western and southern parts of Germany the Christkind comes on Heilige Abend (because jesus was born that evening) and brings the presents, which everyone opens that evening. In the northern and Eastern parts of Germany, (Protestant reform, ever heard of a man named Luther? therefore no Christkind-which is a mixture of angel and christ, past and present and future) there is the Weihnachtsmann, or Christmas man, who brings the presents in the night and they are opened the next morning (read: Santa Claus). Being in the Catholic part of the country, we opened our presents on Christmas eve. Nic and I went to hear the choir at her old school run by the Fransican monastery, which was lovely, and we got to walk in the snow. Then we had a lovely dinner and opened our presents.
I received Nigel Slater's first volume of Tender all about vegetables. The pictures of the garden are exquisite. I am still not quite done reading the volume i got for my birthday, so I haven't started reading it yet. But so far, it looks amazing. Oh, and a new cooking pot- medium sized, good for cooking pasta etc. And the sweetest little felt wool sheep that stands on the palm of my hand, grazing. She is the preview or ersatz sheep until we have land and can buy our first sheep of our own. My mother incidentally has a friend from high school who is moving to Ireland full time next year from the states and he has sheep and we can go visit and learn how to shear and milk and everything sheep related. He keeps merino sheep and angora goats. I am hoping to get some wool sent here way before we go visit. Like in the next weeks.
Christmas morning the duck went in the oven stuffed with Hokkaido winter squash, chestnuts, apple, quince, and hazelnuts. And we had pierogi, duck, and red cabbage cooked with onions and apples followed by Christmas cookies. Christmas cookies, by the way, are traditionally not eaten until Christmas eve here, so we baked all these different kinds of cookies and then couldn't eat any of them.
It snowing all three days meant that we couldn't drive anywhere and no one could visit us, so we had lovely quiet days with Nic's parents eating, playing cards, singing Christmas carols, and being together.
All of that said, I had to wonder often through the days what Christmas really means to me. Jesus as a child and the story of Christianity doesn't actually have any resonance with me. Of course, what is important is the food and friendship and the traditions of the time. Those I can connect to, and enjoy thoroughly. However, I couldn't find any root for the holiday, nothing to track it to that made sense for me. The solstice is much more resonant. I walked out around sunrise on the morning of the 21rst, which at this latitude (50 7 N 8 41 E) was 8:22am (By way of comparison: NYC 40 47 N 73 58 W and the sun rose at 7:11 that morning) But it is interesting that because no one around here, publicly anymore anyway, celebrates the solstice, it just doesn't have the psychic reverberance that Christmas does. With Christmas Markets and everything so CHRISTMAS here in Germany, there isn't much psychic space for anything else during that time, no matter which religion. I kept reminding myself on christmas day that for so many people around the world, it was just a Saturday. That said, the time together and sharing the traditions of the holiday were beautiful. especially our tree, which I will add a picture of when i am back in Großkrotzenburg and can transfer it from the camera.
For now, I am sitting on the floor in our new apartment, with almost no furniture, having painted three of the five rooms, happy to be in an almost empty apartment (I brought things for the kitchen, of course) with the quiet and the candle.
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