We had a very nice Christmas with gifts from our family arriving in stages. Some have still yet to arrive, so Christmas for us in some ways is still ongoing. We got wonderful things like Lucky Charms and Grape Nuts cereal (thanks J and L), Campbell's soups in a variety of flavors, wonderfully warm clothes from my mom, my sister's family and my brother's family, and real molasses and brown sugar from my sister and mom, American movies, games for our game system from both my husband's and my parents, Koolade to last us through our stay here, and many other wonderful and ordinary things. It was really comical to see all of us so excited about these items that are common Walmart and grocery store fare; but, as they say, you never know what you will miss until you don't have it. I just wish we could have sent things that were so meaningful to everyone back in the states, but I doubt the German sausages would make it past the dogs at customs. :-)
On Christmas Day, we went skiing at a nearby beginner's slope to see if we could get our ski legs back and start to manage these German slopes. We had a wonderful time. The runs were easy, and everyone felt comfortable. It even snowed on us to the point that we had to quit a little early to keep our faces from stinging from the pellets. On the 28th, we met Heinz and Christine, friends of my husband's parents, in Austria. We skied a resort there that is right near the Zugspitze - the tallest mountain in Germany. The picture below is from one of the slopes we went down. This was not an easy set of slopes, so it was a little nerve wracking with the kids for me as a mom.
New Year's was particularly wonderful since we are on the top floor of our building. This gave us an excellent view of the entire town when right at midnight, everyone everywhere started to shoot big fireworks. We could go to any window in our apartment and see the skies light up. To make it even that much more special, it also began snowing very large snowflakes around 11:30 PM. I never would have thought that I could get a chance to see fireworks in the snow. Our local mall had an event going on where they beamed a green laser into the sky. When the snowflakes got really big, it made the entire beam sparkle. It was amazingly beautiful. We also got to partake in a very German tradition for New Year's by watching a showing of "Dinner for One". This is a British comedy skit that was recorded in the early 60s. Each year on New Years, they show this comedy skit in English. It is only 18 minutes long and was a grainy black-and-white film, but it was funny AND it was in English! We also got to watch the original "It's a Wonderful Life" dubbed over in German, too. That was really different. Below is a picture of our tree lit up with snow on it at around 1 AM on New Year's Day.
It seems like it has been a very long time since the last question of the day. I had asked "Why is Sunday, Dec. 21st so important to Germans anyway?" Well the answer is actually true of anyone who lives in the northern latitudes. This day was the shortest day of the year: the winter solstice. (Kids, why do we have a winter solstice? What is actually happening to make our days so short?) One thing that has been very noticeable to us is how early it gets dark. By 4:30 in the afternoon, it is nearly dark outside, and we have to start turning on lights to see in our apartment. But we have begun the journey now of heading towards the summer solstice, when the day will be the longest. I have been amazed to see just how fast we start adding daylight to our days. In this week alone, we will have added 10 minutes to the time it starts getting dark. By the end of this 6 month journey, we will have gone from a sunrise of 8:02 AM and sunset of 4:26 PM for a total of only 8 hours and 23 minutes to our day to a sunrise of 5:17 AM and sunset of 9:18 PM for a total of 16 hours and 1 minute to our day, nearly double the daylight! Where would you have to go on earth to not have the sun rise at all on Dec. 21st?
The words for the day are day: der Tag (tahg) and night: die Nacht (nahcht where the ch is that cat sound.)
The question for the day today is also related to astronomy: "How did one German change the entire solar system?"
Auf Wiedersehen,
Frau Spitzer
