How do I celebrate Christmas? So here goes.
After a very busy week at work I just got ready with cleaning the house and now have a moment before what I call the
Christmas-madness will set in. Lol. It's around noon overhere.
Like Chrissi said already: Christmas Eve is
the day in Germany. This is when everybody will get their presents and everybody will sing
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht in church. So it will soon get kind of solemn.
Here's our schedule: we'll have lunch and then gather in the living room where my husband and my kid have decorated the Christmas tree yesterday. We'll sing some German Christmas songs (mother playing the piano...). I'm not much of a musician and we aren't any good at singing, but it's the good intention that counts, isn't it?
After this, we'll hand out the pesents that have been sitting there in the living room for a couple of days now. Christ child must have placed them there while we were out of the house… There's a name on every present. And there are many of them!
We'll probably have a little Glühwein (mulled wine) and Plätzchen (homemade Christmas cookies) along with that. I don't bake them myself, though. Franca's Grandmothers are much better at that...
At 4.30 pm we go to church. It's a special childrens' mass where my daughter plays a part singing. After church we visit my mother in law and have diner at her place. It's the same each year. We'd love to invite her over to our house, but there's also her elderly sister who'd be alone then and who's too frail to come along, so we always end up having diner together with the two of them at my mother in law's place. It goes without saying that there are going to be more presents.
Around 7 pm we'll come back to our house and greet my parents. They just live upstairs. Presents again. Then they'll leave for the regular adults' Chritsmas mass around 10 pm and we'll go downstairs and spend the rest of the evening chatting an drinkin' an all.
First Christmas holiday (Dec 25th): Lunch with my husband's relatives. Second Christmas holiday: Lunch with my relatives. More presents.
And that is just the beginning of the holiday season at our home... The afternoon of December 26th is one of the very rare occasions throughout the year that you can actually witness me baking cake. Birthday cake, that is. I could do without but it's considered my duty to invite everybody over for coffee on the 27th which is not only my birthday but also my daughter's. So the party goes on, and before we know it, the year is over and we celebrate sylvester and, at midnight toast to the new year
and my father's birthday with is on January 1st. On Newyear's Day we, of course, will be also very busy visiting all kinds of friends, wishing them a happy new year and sharing a drink or two.
So, crazy days lie ahead, and I don’t know how often I will manage to be online. I know, I've pretty much been absent here lately, anyway. Forgive me. Real life got in my way…
Here’s wishing everybody a very happy and peaceful Christmas!
Yours
ANKE