Christmas in Germany

I've spent a truly lovely Christmas with my wonderful adopted German family and feel so blessed to have such close friends to spend the holiday with. The day after I arrived, Manuela and I joined Vera and Steffen in Bonn and we all went to Schloss Drachenburg to visit the Christmas market. Spectacular castle with a very authentic market (no plastic/kitsch anything in sight), lots of good food, not too many people, and a stunning view down to the Rhein river. The weather wasn't fantastic but the rain held off most of the afternoon. It was great to soak up the atmosphere, get my ear back into German, and spend time together.

Manuela, Siegfried, and I managed to pick out the Weihnachtsbaum without too much arguing and Siegfried manfully hauled it home in the wheelbarrow. Germans typically decorate the tree on Christmas Eve but families do it earlier and earlier in recent times. We held off until the 23rd but that was mainly to make sure all us "kids" were home for it! Of course, the all important question is what theme to have - this year we went for "colourful" i.e. chuck basically everything on the tree.

On Christmas Eve we watched Love Actually, went to the local church, then ate a big dinner, opened presents, and watched the classic German version of Cinderella. Very relaxed and nice to be with people I consider family. It was hard skyping home (homesickness was inevitable) but I'm so glad for technology that makes this kind of connection possible. On the first Christmas day (25th) we actually had a pretty chilled out day. More watching classic films, eating, and Siegfried taught me to play darts. On the second Christmas day (Boxing Day) we went out for breakfast and in the evening we all went to the Christmas circus in Aachen. Top quality acts which were either hilarious, heart-stopping, beautiful, or all of the above. I certainly enjoyed the aerialists though I wish the guy balancing on the trapeze had been harnessed in or there'd been a net. That was a little too dangerous for me - I don't particularly want to see someone fall to their death!
On the 27th we met up with Siegfried's side of the family for, you guessed it, more eating! I actually quite liked this continuous eating because I eat little and often so am much better at pacing myself than others seemed to be. I enjoyed seeing all the family and there is much discussion about and anticipation of Vera and Steffen's wedding in April next year (2020).

On Saturday we had the great dog hair cut - Ute decided to cut Balduin's coat herself and the dog was mostly pretty patient while this happened. He always looks a little bit distressing afterwards, I mean, he is half the dog he used to be! In the afternoon the girls went to Roermond in Holland to the outlet store for shopping. I enjoyed the lights and shaking our heads at the queues of people outside places like Gucci and Armani. Steffen joined Vera and I to watch Stars Wars in the evening as the Dutch tend to play movies in English with subtitles rather than dubbing over like the Germans. I never quite got used to seeing English actors but hearing unknown German come out of their mouths!

I came back to England on Sunday and Ed picked me up from the airport. We are having a quiet couple of days before he goes back to work on Thursday. For New Year we are going out to the local pub for dinner and then we'll see what the weather is doing. If the mist clears we will head up the hill behind my house at midnight and see what fireworks there are to see!

Thanks everyone for reading the blog this year, I hope 2019 has been a good year for you all. It's been a great help to me knowing of the support from people back in NZ and the new friends I've met here. May 2020 be a blessed year and I look forward to all the new adventures it brings. :)