Christmas

Frohe Weihnachten!

Christmas impressions from Germany . . .

A fairytale white Germany,
from Berlin to the Black Forest,
every branch and twig and blade of grass
covered with lacy crystals of ice

Our own tree in Berlin,
decorated with seashells from the Oregon coast
that were collected by my dad and crafted by my mom

Delicious meat fondue on Christmas Eve
with Jost’s father and stepmother,
followed by candle lighting, gift giving,
and a midnight mass in the old stone Catholic church in Bühl
(yes, those are real candles on the tree!)

Sledding on Christmas Day in the snow above the Black Forest

Christmas Day feast:
a delectable roasted goose, Thüringer Kartoffelklöße,
red cabbage, and chestnut stuffing

The Weihnachtsmann marzipan Christmas tort!

Back home in Berlin:
our beautiful 2-euro flea market candelabra gives us
Christmas candlelight throughout the year!

May God richly bless you with his light in this new year!

"In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness,
but the darkness has not understood it."
John 1:4

"Hair" Zetzsche

Introducing . . . Jost . . . with hair!

Many of you may not know that Jost actually does have a full head of hair trying to grow under that bald pate. Against his will, he's now been nudged into displaying that hair to the world after several people—among them one of Hannes's basketball teammates from Ghana—asked with concern whether Jost was a skinhead.

Apparently, Jost has been wearing a significant part of the neo-Nazi skinhead "uniform" with his bald head and black leather jacket, and in contemporary Germany this is confusing enough to make people wonder about his intentions and political orientation. After asking around among people who are more familiar with the skinhead scene, he decided that this probably isn't an uncommon assumption based on his appearance. So, strongly against his own personal preferences, Jost decided to let his hair grow again.

His family thinks he looks great with all that dark brown hair. What do you all think?

Addendum:

After I’d written this entry, Jost decided he couldn’t stand all that hairy dark brown stuff on his head and shaved it all off again. Sigh! With a bright red scarf, clogs, and a cabby cap he’s hoping to allay any worries about his skinhead status.

A visit to Hamburg

The Hamburgers' Homecoming

Last weekend we made a quick trip back to Hamburg, the birthplace of three-fifths of our family. Anna and I tried to be patient as Jost, Hannes, and Lara got all teary-eyed at being back in their old stomping ground.

We visited the tiny apartment where we lived when Lara was born, and stood under the gnarled old tree that dropped an apple on her forehead as we carried her inside for the first time. We pointed at the balcony where fat little Hannes used to play in his sand box and call out strange German-American greetings to passersby. Oh, am I happy not to be living in that cramped space anymore with a baby and a toddler!

A gray winter scene outside our last apartment in Hamburg

We played tourist down at the immense harbor with its huge container ships, and ate lunch at an old harbor pub that looked as if Captain Ahab should have been sitting around smoking his pipe with the other whalers in some dark smoky corner.

A view of the harbor

At the Hamburger Dom, a sprawling amusement park that comes to Hamburg twice a year, we rode the Riesenrad (ferris wheel) with Jost’s mother and tried to ignore our frozen noses as we admired the view of the city at night.

Amo Heidi, Anna, and Hannes in his burka on the Riesenrad

And to top it all off, we had a lovely Advent coffee with Jost’s mother, brother, 87-year-old great aunt Tante Ilse, and her daughter Gela, a full family reunion of Jost's maternal side of the family. It was fun to see the children be able to communicate freely with their German relatives for the first time in their lives.

Shopping

To Market, to Market

Ja, I am a German hausfrau: I market, therefore I am.

Now that the leaves are gone from the trees I can look down from the window beside my desk and see the market across the street where I buy our groceries. Kaiser's is a small store that makes our crowded Safeway in Reedsport look positively cavernous, but there's a wonderful selection of hundreds of cheeses and wursts and a bakery with scrumptious breads and rolls.


I carry a clip on my key chain with a metal, euro-sized ring to activate the shopping cart lock—without it I'm always unsuccessfully rummaging in my pockets for that elusive euro coin. I buy our mayonnaise in tubes, milk in tiny liter cartons, and eggs in cartons of ten (why not a dozen?).

Milk, eggs, and mayo

To buy cheese or wurst or fresh meat I stand in line to order from the ladies behind the gleaming display counters—500 grams of mixed ground pork and beef (the cheapest ground meat) and five pork chops, bitte! I was thrilled to discover relatively cheap boneless frozen chicken breasts here, also, a new addition since my German shopping of ten years ago.

Long lines at the cash register are par for the course, especially on Saturdays because all stores are closed on Sundays. I put my items on the conveyer belt and then lay out my cloth shopping bags in my cart, ready for the race to bag the items and get my wallet ready by the time the cashier is finished. I'm getting better now at recognizing all those little euro coins and cents, but it's taken me awhile. I can't imagine what the transition has been like for old-timers who have handled deutschmarks all their lives.

Now I retrieve my little pseudo-euro from the shopping cart and manhandle my heavy cloth bags back to the apartment. I'm grateful to live so near to the market, but my shopping trips are still limited to what I can carry, and I tend to be at the store every day. It's a daily ritual that I engage in with nearly every other German hausfrau.