Silly Season

Well I’m feeling much more festive than usual this year, which is hardly surprising since I live in a house which is decorated like something out of a movie, its actually winter here, and everyone’s all wrapped up, there are the most fantastic Christmas markets in every town and you can just tell that there is much more tradition in the air, than just blatant commercialism. Oh there’s that too don’t get me wrong, but it just feels nicer here if you know what I mean. Also the whole month of December is geared towards celebrating, starting on the 5th when the boys get ready for a visit from St Nick.

St. Nicholas is the patron saint of children and his feast day is December 6th. Gradually a custom grew up where on the eve of St. Nicholas' feast day children would place their shoes or boots out for St. Nicholas to fill with candy and fruit, with the bad children getting twigs. St. Nicholas carried with him a book of sins with which he determined whether the child warranted the goodies or the twigs. After the Protestant Reformation in Germany, German authorities wanted to do away with the image of a Catholic saint distributing gifts, so the idea of Santa Claus was born. I’ve read since being here that this is when they created the idea that he had the white beard, red suit, and sleigh – didn’t someone say that Coca-cola was responsible for that, from a very effective advertising campaign of theirs? So German children therefore distinctly distinguish between the Weihnachtsmann (Santa Claus) and Nikolaus (St. Nick). The scenario is comparable to the US-American tradition of Christmas stockings over the fireplace. For other European countries like the Netherlands the 6th of December still is the biggest day of the season for receiving presents.

Well my 22 birthday came and went, I got up as per usual nice and early to take the boys to school, and Nicole had put streamers and a banner up. I hadn’t gotten around to making a cake, so there was a whole lot of these German chocolate things with candles instead. I got some new perfume, leather wallet, a handbag and body lotions. So feeling pretty spoilt already, I headed into town and got treated to a nice lunch by my new friend Ellie. After spending the rest of the afternoon together she came with me to pick the boys up from school, and that’s when we found Max practically dead on the floor of his class room. Well not really, but whenever males get sick it’s as if we should get a priest to read them their last rites. So I rushed him off to the doctors, after we’d been home 5 minutes and he’d thrown up on the expensive rug – woops. The doc said he had Scarlet Fever again, which I always thought was something only people in the 1800’s got. But it’s just what Germans call Strep A. The boys have had it several times since I’ve been here, and it’s highly contagious so Max got a week off school, even though he was bouncing off the walls by the next day as if nothing had happened. Nicole took the next day off work, so I took the chance to meet up with Ellie again, and Michael (a guy from Ellie’s fiancés work) and looked around the Christmas Markets, and as Michael was a native he could explain everything to us, and we tried different things.

So for the past week I’ve been at home with Max during the day, playing games, watching movies, making Christmas cookies and these cool window decorations thingies. But on Wednesday night I made sure Frank could be home early, and I went out to dinner with James, Ellie and Marc. There were supposed to be more of us but a lot rainchecked as its a mad time of year for everyone. We went to a really nice Indian restaurant and just talked for three hours. So nice to get out of the house and do "grown up things" for a change.

Then the next night I went out to dinner with just the Boys and Frank, as Nicole was in Paris to a Bavarian restaurant, where Max managed to finish off half a duck all by himself. A guy with a mullet sitting near us couldn’t take his eyes off this tiny 23kg 7 year old boy, demolishing what even someone my size would struggle with. I was supposed to go to an English language play last night, but had to baby-sit the boys so got some movies out and snuggled up in bed with them, since its about 1 degree outside at the mo.

Something you might find interesting is that most DVD stores are actually like vending machines/ATMs, but there are still your typical video stores around (if you know where to find them). There are a few changes to how they do things (well at the one I go to anyway), firstly you don’t pay when you get them out, you pay when you return them, so you have to go in when the stores actually open, your not able to return them on your way to work early in the morning. I guess this way there’s no such thing as late fees, as you pay for all videos on a day by day basis. All DVDs are €1 a day, even brand new releases! So if you have one overnight it is a grand total of €2!! Not bad, huh. Of course most DVDs have the English audio option, I’m in heaven. Sometimes I flick on the German subtitles to help me learn a bit more.

Which brings me to my next point; no matter how hard I try I am really not making much progress with my German! I think the biggest problem, apart from not actually taking any classes is that even if I ask for something in German, they reply in English! When I tell them it’s ok to talk in German they decide it’s a perfect opportunity to practice their English – when is it my turn huh? I’m not really complaining, I guess, but it’s just so frustrating that when you make the effort, they make it so obvious that you’re a foreigner. It’s actually pretty bad how much English is spoken around the area I live. We have a massive American Army Base here, and I think walking down the street I hear just as much English as I do German – no kidding. There is a Cinema dedicated entirely to English language movies in Frankfurt, there are at least three English theaters that I know of in the area. Every day I listen to an English speaking radio station. I can watch three channels on TV in English. At just about every restaurant we’ve been to there are English menus as well. On most advertising there is usually some catchphrase in English and random English words have filtered into everyday German vocabulary. There are also Australian and Irish pubs, where a lot of the bar staff can’t speak anything but English. Of course this all comes in exceptionally handy for me, and keeps home sickness at bay, but I can’t help the sinking feeling that by the time I leave I’m still not going to be able to string one coherent sentence together and that’s pretty sad.

Well anyway, I am off to Northern Bavaria this afternoon with the family, to celebrate Nicole’s oldest brothers 50th. Then later on this week, we’re having a Christmas party at the house for Nicole’s work colleagues. I’ve done all my Christmas shopping, except for one gift so just counting down the days now, not long to go.