For Catholics, Advent is not a happy, sparkly, fun time. It's when you wear dark purple and sing dreary songs about waiting solemnly for Jesus. Germany's secular version of Advent, though, is about the Christmas market, or Weihnachtsmarkt. Each town in Germany has its own - clusters of wooden stalls selling crafts and gifts and candied almonds and sausages. It is the only German festival I can think of that has no role for beer. The main star of the market is Gluhwein - a hot, sweet, spiced red wine that you can buy with or without an additional shot of booze. There's also hot chocolate and apple cider, ditto on the extra shot.
We went to the market in Hannover with our crew of teacher friends on Friday night. Here are some photos:
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| Andrew and Katja |
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| In the Finnish village part of the Hannover market, you can eat these little fried fish, head and tails included. There are also reindeer sandwiches and salmon smoking on wooden planks beside a big fire. |
The Christmas market is a good place to buy gifts to send back home, things they wouldn't know to ask for. I usually don't ask for anything for Christmas, because that would make it way too easy for the gift buyer. I need to challenge their creativity, and I don't need more stuff. Any stuff I acquire will one day need to be packed up and moved somewhere else. But, when pressed, I did produce a list for my siblings of things I cannot buy for myself. It goes something like this:
An expat Christmas list
Dear Santa (Lieber Weihnachtsmann),
I have been very good this year. Please bring me vanilla extract, ranch dressing packets, hot sauce, chocolate chips, and snack size Ziploc bags. I hope that you can make it up all the stairs to our apartment, since we don't have a chimney. Maybe you could just park your sleigh on the balcony instead.
Love, Julia
St Nikolaus was already here. He came on Thursday to put chocolate in all the kids' shoes. In Germany, Santa Claus is the Weihnachtsmann, which means Christmas Man in German. I imagine him as sort of a Nordic superhero, flying by with a furry cape and a big W on his chest. He'd be the German version of this guy on the right, which means he'd have the W and wear a long scarf around his neck that would flap in the breeze. Brian and I are excited about the snow. It beats all the rain we had this time last year that made me feel like wearing dark purple and being gloomy. Plus, we have Minnesota-worthy snow gear to wear. We even bought a Christmas tree yesterday and wheeled it home on a bike.
So have a Gluhwein and let it snow, Hannover. Happy second Advent Sunday.
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