Day 6: CHRISTMAS EVE/HEILIGE ABEND
(DRAFT)

Again, I fought with my watch. It went off at 7:30, and I was not ready to get up. F*** you, I thought as I pushed the button and went downstairs to meet Peter and Marita for breakfast.

By 9:30, Peter and I were on the road to his offices where I had grand ambitions to upload my blog material from the previous day, send a couple of emails and get a magazine subscription for Peter.

We arrived at his offices and, Gott sei Dank, thanks be to God, I was effortlessly able to connect to the Internet.


..

While Peter and Marita got ready, Mats and I busied ourselves watching Winnie the Poo, dubbed in German, and cracking hazelnuts. Suddenly, it was half past two and I had just 10 minutes to get ready for church. Upstairs, I threw on my khakis and a sweater, applied some hair gel and walked down the semi-circular staircase.

We ran outside as bells rang. We were just on time for church service for kids:

The Evangelical pastor explained the importance of the holiday and asked how many kids had waited a long time for the holiday. There was a receptive crowd of anxious kids with their young weary parents.

Next, the congregation learned a fun song-with gestures no less-that I would translate as the following:

Christmas is the party for Jesus
We celebrate it with candles
God brought him down to earth to us.

Christmas it the party for Jesus
We dance around the Christmas tree
God brought him down to earth to us.

Christmas is the party for Jesus
God brought him down to earth to us
We pray for peace on earth.

It had kids waving their hands, spinning in a circle, motioning God from heaven to earth and, at the end, everyone in the congregation holding hands.

It was cute and appropriate for the Children's service. Frankly, I had been immersed into German for a few days and I phased things out a bit. I didn't mean to; I was just tired. This was the 40 minute version. I would have had a harder time with the intellectual 60+ minute adult version. Germans can be intellectual. Trust me.

Strangely, I did not know any of the Christmas songs that were sung and I didn't know the Lord's Prayer (in German.)

After the service, we went back to Julia and Sören's house. We played and read for some time.

Kristof, Julia's cousin arrived dressed up as der Weihnachtsmann, the Christmas man. The scene was staged so that Mats first saw the Christmas tree then suddenly Santa arrived through the door. Mats knew who it was and paced a bit, in excitement.

Santa warned him that he wasn't the best of boys this year but if he promised to brush his teeth, etc. this year he would receive presents.

Then Santa unloaded the presents from a large tarp sack and placed them on the floor. Mats hurriedly opened them up.

I spent the early evening hanging out at Julia and S¨ören's place. I was very tired from the lack of sleep the night before. I managed to get a 20 minute nap.

For dinner, we had the family favorite of meat fondue.

The adults opened presents around 11:00. I had bought some thoughtful (and somewhat bulky) gifts from the US, which I was more than happy to unload. I got Sören a poker set. He doesn't play and I hoped to spend some more time with him tomorrow to talk and to teach him the game.

We were sufficiently intoxicated to the point that none of us could drive, so we walked the way back. We took another route, which I thought would circumvent Gewaltgasee, Rape Alley. I asked Marita to hold my hand as we walked through. I did manage to get a picture of it:
- posted by Matt @ 8:05 AM