Christmas & New Years

When I first found out we would be overseas for some of the biggest holidays of the year, I wasn’t too worried about missing family. I figured it would be nice for us to get a chance to spend the holidays just the two of us. However, after Thanksgiving ended up not feeling like a holiday at all, I was really happy we wouldn’t have to spend Christmas alone. We can’t even begin to thank the Marshes for inviting us into their home for Christmas. If we had stayed at our apartment in Celle, Christmas would have felt just like any other day of the year.

Peter and Jerrode became really good friends with Pam and Mark (Daniel’s parents) through their church in Austin. They have a daughter, Vanessa, who is the same age as Matthew, Daniel’s brother. After they moved to Germany they kept in touch with the Steves, and I actually met them in 2005 when they were visiting the states. We went to Putt Putt for their son, Christoph’s birthday (who’s now 11).  I’m so happy I got the chance to get to know all of them better. They are so nice, fun to hang out with, and made us feel really comfortable in their home.

They live in Frankfurt, which is about 3 and half hours away from Celle. We left early on the morning of Christmas Eve and got there around lunch time. We spent the afternoon chatting and catching up on what was going on with family and then we went to the Christmas Eve service at their church that evening. I was really looking forward to going to church since we hadn’t been in so long. They attend an American church so we were able to understand the whole service which was really great. Jerrode is the music director at the church so we got to hear her play the piano and organ, as well as conduct the choir. Peter is an opera singer so he performed a solo of “O Holy Night” during the service. We met a lot of people at the church from Texas and there was even someone who goes to Texas Tech. 

After we got back from the service, we had soup for dinner and then opened presents. Daniel and I were very surprised that the Marshes had so many presents for us. They did a great job of including us. They gave us some chocolates (which thanks to Daniel’s GERD, I get all to myself hehe), a pepper flavored pasta, and different salt/spices with a grinder that I’m really excited to try on our pork chops tonight. We also got a care package from Daniel’s parents that included some more gifts. I’m so excited about the gloves we got that can be used with touch screen phones.

 

They put real candles on Christmas trees in Germany!

 

 Daniel and I in front of the Christmas Tree.

The next morning Peter made us pancakes and we spent the afternoon playing video games, messing around with Nerf guns, and just hanging out. For Christmas dinner we had lamb, potatoes, and I had brussel sprouts for the first time. It’s not my favorite vegetable but it had bacon mixed with it so how could I not eat it :). After dinner we watched a version of A Christmas Carol that had Bill Murray. Overall, it was a great Christmas. We left the next morning but were really looking forward to coming back as they had invited us for New Years as well.

The drive back was pretty uneventful. We got stuck for about 20 minutes in a traffic jam due to a wreck on the autobahn, but made it home safely. When we went to get out of the car, Daniel said he wasn’t sure where the apartment key was. We couldn’t find it and realized it was probably left on the desk in the room we slept in. We had to call the apartments and have them bring another key, which was difficult. The number we called went to voicemail and of course it was in German. We couldn’t understand what it said but left a message anyways. Luckily they called us back and had enough English to let us know they would bring a key. 

The week between Christmas and New Years was actually pretty relaxing and restful for us. Daniel took Tuesday off so we spent the day watching How I Met Your Mother. We also went to the Celle Christmas Market that night. Christmas is called Weihnachten in German so the Christmas Market was called Weihnachtsmarkt. Most Christmas Markets closed much earlier in December. Some of the ones we visited in England actually ended as early as Dec. 11! Most end on the 22^nd or 23^rd but the Celle market stayed open until the 27^th. We went on the last evening and a lot of the stalls had already left and the ones still there were packing up. We did get to walk around the historic town center a little bit and they still had all the Christmas lights up so it was still really nice. I also finally got to have a crepe with Nutella. I’d been wanting one since we’d been in England and gone to all those other Christmas Markets. It actually wasn’t that good because crepes are soft and then the Nutella inside just made it mushy. Oh well. We also visited a nearby concentration camp that week but I’ll have a separate post for that.

Christmas in Celle. Welcome

The lights decorating the city.

Some of the booths.

A Ferris Wheel.

A nativity scene. This and the Ferris Wheel were part of a kids area.

Daniel didn’t get any days off work for New Years so we again left early on Saturday and got there at about lunch time. We spent the afternoon watching funny videos on youtube, watching Bruce Almighty, and playing bananagrams and card games. Christoph taught us a game called Donkey that is almost identical to Stupid, a game we used to play all the time in high school. We also taught them how to play pitch. For dinner that evening we had Reclette. Reclette is similar to fondue you would have at The Melting Pot or somewhere like that. With fondue you put the meat in hot oil to cook and dip things in cheeses and stuff. Reclette is a cooking machine where you have a top grill where you can cook large amounts of meat but you also have individual little cooking areas just under the grill. There are 8 little cooking plates and you put whatever vegetables, cheeses, etc. you want on there and let it cook a couple of minutes. You can put additional meats under there as well. I think we’ll probably try to get a Reclette when we get back because it’s really good for social dinners. 

After dinner we just kind of hung out until about 11:45. In the states most people start doing fireworks right when it gets dark. They usually try to string it out so they last as long as possible. Here, not too many people do fireworks until right at midnight. So we bundled up, took our glasses of champagne and fireworks outside and got ready for midnight to come. There were lots of people outside shooting off small ground fireworks and just chatting. As soon as midnight came everyone said “Frohes neues jahr!," kissed their significant others, clinked glasses, and started doing fireworks. The amount of noise, light, and smoke was just amazing. It was so loud and you could see the whole sky lighting up. Even off in the distance you could see that the night sky was much brighter than normal because of how many fireworks were going off at once. It continued like this for almost 45 minutes before it started slowing down a little bit.

 Getting some rockets ready for when it hits 12:00.

 

 I love the gold and purple ones.

 Daniel and I on New Years!

 Christoph having fun! He was holding Peter's champagne while he set up some fireworks.

 It's Midnight! All the smoke.

 A fountain. They're my favorite.

 Another fountain :)

 There were really tall buildings around us so this was one of the few big ones we could really see.

We all slept in a little bit the next morning since we’d been up so late. For brunch the next day we had french toast, potatoes, and sausage and then played some more Pitch. We were able to play both 4 handed and 6 handed while we were there. The game is played pretty differently depending on how many people you have. My parents will be happy to know we’re spreading that game all over the world, hehe. We also played Pictionary, boys vs. girls. We were way behind but had a great come back for the win. 

It was close to 4 when we finished playing Pictionary so Daniel and I got our stuff together, making sure we didn’t forget anything this time, and said our goodbyes. Daniel had to work on Monday and we didn’t want to get back too late. We are so thankful we got to spend Christmas and New Years with the Marshes. They helped make our stay in Germany much more fun and memorable.

 Our wonderful hosts for Christmas and New Years!

(Peter, Christoph, Jerrode, & Vanessa)

I’m way behind on my posts so I'll try to do two more this week. One for the concentration camp and, finally, a post about the things I did in Leeds. We’re headed to Berlin this weekend so look for a post about that next week. I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years Eve and that 2012 has gotten off to a great start!