A Home for the Holidays

Christmas time has come and I am thousands of miles from home.  It's a strange feeling, a surprisingly empty one really.  It doesn't feel like Christmas at all.  For one thing, this weather is not right.  No nipping cold, no  snow, it's a relatively balmy 40 degrees Fahrenheit and the grass has retained all of it's green.  No big family gatherings or snowmen.  It's not my normal Christmas, but it has been all the sweeter for that.

Christmas eve is the big event here, celebrated on the 24th of December.  With cookies baked and presents wrapped beneath the tree, it looked almost like an American Christmas.  This might have had something to do with the fact that I was the one who took over the tree decoration.  I have a "The More the Merrier" mindset when it comes to Christmas trees, and I never want an ornament to feel left out, so its not unusual for every branch to hold multiple ornaments.  When Helmut saw what I had created, his eyebrows jumped up to meet his hairline, and he called Petra in to have a look at what the crazy Ami had done this time.  I had hung every single ornament, strung lights around the whole thing, and added a liberal layer of tinsel on top of it all.  Apparently, they would normally pick one of those three decorations.  They had a chuckle over it all, and declared that it looked better than ever.  A few days later, Helmut came home from work with a giant, light-up snowflake to hang in my window.  He said it was an old store decoration that everyone else at work thought was kitschy but he figured I'd like it.  I laughed and hung it in my window, and every night I'd turn it on and feel a little glow of home.

So with everything properly decorated, Christmas was ready to begin.  New traditions were the name of the game, starting out with putting make-up on my host dad.
Wait, what?
That's right folks.  We whitened his beard, rosied his cheeks, and even gave him a nice little belly before helping him get dressed.  Then it was my turn to be sparkled, wigged, and winged.  Petra bayed us farewell, and we climbed into the big green van, the Weihnachtsman and his Engel.
I'll back it up a little for you now.  German children receive their gifts both from parents and a Santa Claus like man, called the Christmas man (Weihnachtsman), in the evening on the 24th.  Many parents will have a friend come and deliver the presents to their kids, dressed as the Weihnachtsman, and that's where Helmut came in.  We drove around to the homes of some of his friends and work colleagues, and when the parents saw his van go by, they'd make an excuse to run outside and hand off a bag full of toys they had bought to Helmut, and maybe give him some insider information on the children, like that Julian had been fighting with Markus, or that Joana didn't keep her room clean. Then we would enter and Helmut would give a little speech about Christmas, and introduce his friend, the American angel, as we handed out the toys to the kids.  He would then make the children promise to be good, otherwise he wouldn't be able to come back the next year.   I was mostly just there for show, but it was a really sweet tradition to be a part of.

After visiting our 5 homes, we picked up Helmut's mom, Oma Wilma, and went home to find Petra and Oma Bertie already in the kitchen.  We had a very tasty fondue dinner then, and cake afterwards.  Then came all the presents.  I had by far the most, seeing as my parents had sent me a package from the US as well.  For the Omas, I had bought chocolates, and Helmut got a giant chocolate Weihnachtsman.  Petra's gift had taken the most time, for it was a small recipe book.  I had taken all the recipes my mom had sent me, translated them, and written them out in a little book for her.  I also made little cards for everyone.  Oma Wilma had knit me a pair of socks and a scarf, and from Oma Bertie, I got a really nice book full of pictures of Germany with German and English captions.  From Petra and Helmut, I received a pair of ice skates, which came in handy in the next months.  My parents sent me some earrings, plenty of candy, and a scarf from my grandma.  After all that, the Omas were ready to go home, so Helmut drove Wilma home and Bertie walked back next door.  Normally that would be the end of Christmas for the Wohlers, but this year they offered to come to midnight mass with me.  We drove down to the church and waited in the atrium for awhile for the 11pm mass to get out, until we realized that mass must have started at 11:30, not 12, so we slipped in and stood in the back.  There weren't any hymnals left for us, so I hummed along to familiar tunes and enjoyed the atmosphere.  The last song, however, was Silent Night, or Stille Nacht.  Preparing to sing after the first notes from the organ, I realized that without the German words, I wasn't going to be able to sing along.  That just didn't seem like an option however, and so I took a big breathe, and began to belt out the English words.  This garnered more than one confused stare as my foreign words clashed against the German ones, but in that moment, it really felt like Christmas, and I was happy.



Sampler of what I was singing, versus the rest of the church:

Silent night, Holy night                               Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht!

All is calm, all is bright                               Alles schläft, einsam wacht
Round yon virgin, mother and child           Nur das traute heilige Paar
Sleep in heavenly peace,                          Holder Knab' im lockigten Haar,
Sleep in heavenly peace.                          Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh

Holy infant, tender and mild                      Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh

Thanksgiving auf Deutsch

Thanksgiving.  One of the classic American holidays.  Or so I thought, until I learned that our northern neighbors also celebrate Thanksgiving, albeit earlier in the year in October.  Feasts for giving thanks for the years harvest also stretch back as far as humans have been planting food as far as my research* can tell.  For my non-north American readers though, maybe I should sum up the idea of Thanksgiving for you.
       Basically, you eat more than you should with a house filled with more people than it fits by normal standards and watch American football with more dedication than is shown at other times of the year.  As for what exactly we eat, there is a trend of soft and mushy, which decreases time spent chewing meaning we can stuff in more food before our bellies notice and start begging us to stop.  It's really all just a race against your hypothalamus. These foods include mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, stuffing, pumpkin pie, apple pie and of course the big ol' butter ball himself, The Thanksgiving Turkey.  I understand that turkey isn't quite a mushy food, but after the amounts of gravy I typically add to it, you find it slides down quite easily.  This list is not exclusive by any means, but it covers the basics.  All this gorging often induces food comas and then leads to lots of napping and lounging.
       Now the second point in my explanation was that you need a very full house, preferably filed with lots of people you love.  For me, this always meant having a bustling crowd of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins with the smallest children often placed at hastily errected card tables scattered across the house with paper turkey centerpieces.  Add a barking dog or two to the mix, and perfection is near at hand.
       The last piece is one that I don't find to be critical for anything but traditions sake and that is watching Thanksgiving day football.  The interested members of the family gather around the fernseher and watch our valiant Lions fight to (unfortunately) most likely a loss, though if we are with my mom's family then we will also tune in to the Packers game and so there is a chance of a win there.

       The challenge that I set myself for this year, was to make the most authentic Thanksgiving I could while here in German.  Now a few problems faced me, like where to buy a turkey, and how to stuff my house to the brim with people I loved.  Football was one problem I decided to sacrifice in the name of simplicity.  I talked to my host parents about the turkey issue and after a few different searches, we found that the local super market actually carried turkeys of consideraable size.  The American expat community is strong enough here that turkeys are stocked for the holiday seasons, making one problem disappear quickly.  Now that we had two 5 kilo birds to stuff, where were we going to find a large group of loving individuals to stuff the house with?  You guessed it, all the American rotary exchange students, that's who!
       My poor, sweet host parents didn't quite know what they were agreeing to I fear when I asked if we could house these American vagabonds for a day of thankful feasting.  Bless their big welcoming hearts, they handled the hectic day with grace and poise and didn't back down from the challenge I built for them.  14 teenagers filled our cozy home which had under gone some remodeling to add a long folding table and two benches across the living room to accomadate everyone.  My host dad made multiple trips to the train station to pick up our pot and pan totting pilgrims that had ridden on buses and trains for up to 2 hours to reach us.  All the classic foods were there and with hearts full of exchange student love we all ate more than might be reccomended but we didn't forget to give thanks for all the blessings we had in our lives.  Going around the tables, we all took time to remember why we were there and who had helped us reach that point.  Many of us had similar things to be thankful for this year and I think the main things for me are covered in this list:

1. My family for enabling my exchange.
2. Rotary for building such an amazing program and sponsoring me.
3. My friends back in Michigan who have supported me from over 4,000 miles away.
4. My host family for taking me in as one of their own.
5. All the exchange students who have acted as my adopted extended family.
6. All the Germans who have shown such kindness to this often confused little Ami.
7. God for listening when nobody else could and guiding me through this year.
8. The lessons I have learned in these last 4 months about myself and the ways of the world.

       It was a wonderful day to reflect on the last 4 months and to look ahead to all the adventures that await us still.  This spirit was all covered in a video that a good friend made where we all recorded our thanks and our dreams for the year.  I really hope I can figure out how to upload videos by the time I get a copy of the video as I am sure it'll be a wonderful snapshot of exchange life to share with you all.  Until then,

Liebe Grüße
~M

*"my research" is actually just some vague memory from something once read and a pinch of critical thinking so here's to hoping I'm right.