The Christmas Letter: the New Year's Edition

December 30: finally some snow. Richard's collection of ceramic replicas of buildings we know decorates the window sill.

The Good Life
It's 34°F outside, with snow on the trees and everywhere else. The chickadees are hopping around the branches, enjoying what seeds are left. Inside, the borrowed cat sleeps on the sofa, the house is decorated for Christmas and classical music is playing softly on the radio. A warm cup of decaff is steaming next to the computer. The picture above is exactly what Kathy sees as she types this at the dining room table. Richard gets a new little ceramic house from Kathy every Christmas, and the third house from the left is this year's model of the Schlenkerla, a brewery in Bamberg. (Hint: click on any of the pictures in this blog to see a larger version on a separate screen. It's cool!)

We are hosting the downstairs neighbors' cat while they are away. This cat is very attached to her people, so while her personal staff is away, she has adopted us as a substitute. For a couple of days after they leave, while she still thinks they could come back any minute, she stays downstairs in her "lair" and Kathy lets her in and out. After a couple of days, she gets tired of being alone and comes up to spend a few hours a day with us, which then turns into a round-the-clock thing, because she wants company. She also doesn't want to go out in the snow. She has established her favorite sleeping place in approximately the middle of the sofa, which has occasioned some changes in our sitting habits, but she purrs nicely, and it's fun to play with her, so it's a change we can live with for a little while.

The neighbors across the street (the ones with Laika, the cocker spaniel) were away until today, Dec. 30, 2014, so Kathy has been shoveling their front walk, bringing the newspaper in and watering the plants.

As you can tell, we have developed good relationships with the neighbors, so that we take care of each other's pets and plants while we're away. Susanne, Kati and Kathy go walking with Laika (Susanne's cocker spaniel) on most weekdays.

It has been nice to stay in Germany for Christmas. We were enjoying the prospect of having time to relax and visit some Christmas markets after we came back from visiting Richard's family in Iowa for Thanksgiving. For us, it's a time to wind down and spend a couple of peaceful weeks without having to work (mostly). From the afternoon of Christmas Eve until the 26th of December, it's holiday time and stores are closed. Same thing on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Then, on January 6, the Epiphany holiday is another chance to enjoy a day without work. We did travel to visit a couple of Christmas markets; more on that later.

What We Did During the Work Week
Those of you who received Bob Leroux's Christmas letter might get the impression that Richard is in a management position. Luckily, he's not - he just has some young engineers working with him that need his "supervision," because, as he affectionately puts it, "the kids know just enough to be dangerous." Richard is now at an age where he is a member of the second oldest age cohort in the company. The people 10 years older than him are looking forward to retirement in the next year. Because of the vagaries of the nuclear industry, there is no one in between, age-wise. A couple years ago, some young people just out of college were hired; these are the people who come to him for advice. Many of the oldest generation come to him for advice as well. He has often been pulled into meetings, to which he wasn't expressly invited, because they need his unique expertise.

During the fall, Richard took an Italian course at the Erlangen adult-ed school. He enjoyed it so much that he even used an online program to practice at home. The woodworking has been on hold until he can make a trip to the saw mill some 20 miles away and get some more wood. He does go down to the shop to putter sometimes and spend time on a wooden clock and some picture frames he's building.

Kathy continues to do freelance translation work from German into English. Since August, she has been busy translating management-standards training documents for a company in Nuremberg who has recently acquired some overseas offices. Most of the training material involves communication and conflict management. Thanks to her exposure to her dad's psychology background and counseling career, a lot of the terms are familiar to her: Transactional Analysis, I'm OK-You're OK and Parent-Adult-Child are some once-familiar themes that she has been re-encountering. This has been solid, full-time work that promises to continue into 2015. A faithful customer from Richard's company also promises to have several pages of technical work for her to edit and translate in the new year.

In addition to walking with the neighbors and the dog on most weekdays, for fun, Kathy takes a water aerobics course once a week at one of the city pools. The weekly yoga course is also a staple. It sure helps to keep up the strength in the arms, legs and core! In spite of all the years of yoga, though, her flexibility is not what she wishes it was. She is looking forward to the Yin yoga seminars her teacher is offering in the new year. Yin yoga addresses the fascia, the tissues surrounding the muscles, by holding certain "restorative" poses for minutes at a time to allow the tissues to stretch. She also took up weaving again, 14 years after her last class at the arts center in Connecticut, weaving a scarf on her tabletop loom. This in turn inspires her to think about the next project(s)...

What We're Reading
On the recommendation of one of Richard's "kids," he has been reading a fantasy series of 6 books in German by an author named Richard Schwartz. Some of the books are written in the style of a murder mystery and some are pure adventure, with magicians. He chuckles often while he reads. Book 6 is on order at the bookstore while he finishes Book 5. He also has a pile of books on his nightstand by authors and poets from the middle ages containing stories from the period and biographies of various personalities.

Kathy is splitting her time between a Christmas present, Engineers of Victory, about the clever people whose inventions and technological advances were indispensable to the Allies' victory in WWII, and certain books by Sam Harris, such as Waking Up and The End of Faith. Harris's premise is that it is not necessary to subscribe to a particular religion in order to have spiritual experiences that give rise to inner peace and compassion for other beings. In fact, religious doctrine can and has gotten in the way of people realizing that everyone can experience consciousness in a self-transcending, productive way. Meditation is the key. For more details, see the books; he has a lot more interesting and controversial, but well-reasoned things to say.  A recent read was a short German book called The Wolf at the Window, a charming Christmas story about a journalist from New York City and a park ranger whose meeting in Wyoming involves an injured wolf and the ranger's purported Uncle "Claus." On Kathy's nightstand, she keeps a copy of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales in German; it was a gift from a German friend. It came in handy in interpreting some figures we saw at the Dresden Christmas Market.

The Christmas Markets: Esslingen and Dresden
We took two weekend trips in addition to the one-day visits to the local Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets). The first trip was to Esslingen with a former colleague, Daniel S. All the elements of a great Christmas market were available: the food and drink, the handcrafts, the music, the decorations and setting, and the entertainment.

Richard at the Glühwein stand

Let's start with the food and drink. Glühwein (mulled wine) was available at  several booths. One in particular sold the local variation made from apple wine and Calvados (apple schnapps). In addition to tasting good, the roasted chestnuts always smell good and feel nice and warm in your hand. As you might expect in Germany, wild game was also available. Kathy bought a Nutella-flavored liquor at one of the booths selling every flavor of liquor you can imagine.

Roasting chestnuts in a big kettle

Booth selling wild game products

A booth selling hand-carved wooden ornaments.
Notice how ornately the roof is decorated.

Hand-blown glass ornaments

Moving on to the hand crafts, there was a wide variety of wooden toys and carvings, hand-blown glass ornaments, hand-made bobbin lace, and hand-made ceramics. The lace actually was made in the same region as that sold at the Dresden markets.

Ceramic models of local buildings, similar to what Kathy buys Richard every year

Medieval Ferris wheel

The entertainment for the kids was in a medieval setting. The Ferris wheel was hand-powered by two knaves. For the older kids, there were archery and axe-throwing booths.

The setting was especially charming. Esslingen is a beautiful little city with a lot of its half-timbered buildings still intact.

Dresden is also a beautiful city, but of a different sort. It is a baroque city on the banks of the River Elbe. It has several Christmas markets with various themes. The main market in Dresden is called the Striezelmarkt, which takes its name from a treat pictured below. The decorations are especially nice here. Near the Frauenkirche, the Church of Our Lady, was a market where local craftsmen sold their wares. At one stand, we bought two hand-turned plates glazed with a holly motif.

The lights of the markets near the Frauenkirche

This market included some delicacies indigenous to Dresden. One of them was the inside-out cinnamon roll (called a Baumstriezel - wrap on a tree, roughly translated), cooked on a greased wooden core (the tree) over an open fire. They gave off a wonderful fragrance as we stopped to watch. Below you see the tray of nuts, cinnamon and sugar that the rolls are smothered in after being coated with melted butter.

Baumstriezel being doused in melted butter, nuts, spices and sugar

The handicrafts reflect the local history, and the Erzgebirge (ore mountains) of the region provided Germany with some of the most traditional of decorations. 

The miners spent the winter months doing woodcarving, while the women made lace. Numerous stands sold both the hand-carved wooden ornaments (Christmas pyramids by the dozens) and handmade lace, all made locally.

The kids had an area of the main market devoted to the Grimms brothers fairy tales.

The princess and the frog, and Snow White and the seven dwarfs

Kathy found a souvenir at a pottery stand selling blue-glazed pottery. She bought two egg cups.

The roofs of all the stands were so ornately decorated, and we can't resist including this picture.

Some pretty cute pigs were pulling Santa's sleigh on top of this sausage maker's stand.

Kathy's favorite Christmas market in Dresden was the one in the courtyard of the former stables of the residential palace of the Saxon princes. It was small, enclosed and cozy, complete with blacksmith, old fashioned bath tubs that could sit 8 people each, a brass quartet who consistently played very good music, which they sometimes accompanied with a drum, and lots of unusual delicacies.

Part of the medieval market in the Dresden residence courtyard

We had liver grilled with meat and bacon on a skewer, hot mead, and some hot mulled wine. A special treat was a booth selling middle eastern coffee and pastries! We could taste the spices in the coffee - it was much better than anything we've attempted at home. We shared a date roll covered in crushed pistachios. Very tasty! We definitely compensated for our surplus energy intake by walking all day to see the various markets around the entire city.

The bath house has two large tubs that seat 8 people each

The bath tubs were set up under the roof of a shed, which presumably served as a changing room. It took all day to heat up the tubs of water. The Baeder, or bath attendant, explained that in the Middle Ages, communal baths were common. It was a social occasion. The bath attendants at the time offered rudimentary medical services, such as tooth-pulling.  Various tools of this trade were on display. Also on display was a bladder full of water with a tube attached to it - the attendant the attendant offered to show Kathy how it worked, but she gracefully declined.






The Epiphany in Germany

The "Star Singers" go from door to door...

...dressed as the 3 Kings

On the 6th of January, Germany celebrates the Feast of the Three Wise Men as a holiday. Every year we get a visit from three kids dressed up as Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. Balthasar carries the star that led the wise men to Bethlehem, and Caspar has his face darkened because Caspar was a Moor from north Africa. The kids knock on your door, sing a song introducing themselves as the wandering wise men following the star, and ask for a donation to a charity that helps children in need. This year, the donations supported children in the Philippines. In return, you get a blessing, indicated by the markings in chalk at the top of your door. The inscription reads "20* C+M+B *15" indicating the year, 2015, and the initials not of Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, as we assumed, but Christus Mansionem Benedicat - Christ bless this house.

Final Words
We continue to enjoy the Christmas traditions here in the "Old Country." That these traditions continue to be maintained is part of what we love about living here. There is a sense of continuity and that things are the way they should be that the Germans try to preserve despite all their country's ups and downs. It gives us a comforting sense of stability.

We also appreciate and continue to practice the American customs that we grew up with, such as putting up the Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving and opening presents on Christmas Day (the Germans put the tree up and open presents on Christmas Eve). We also cannot do without colored lights and ornaments of all colors on our tree! When our German friends get to reminiscing about their families' Christmas customs, we realize that we Americans, too, have our own unique customs. We just hadn't recognized that we do have a unique culture until we had another one to compare it with.

We wish you all a happy, healthy and successful New Year!

An American Christmas tree in Germany