It’s like I told Scribbit last week, I am not so obsessed with the Generous December Group Writing Project that I can’t enter other people’s. This entry, is for MamaBlogga’s December challenge to write about the best time of the year.

While living in Germany is often the cause elevating my stress levels, it does have it’s advantages. Nobody does Christmas like the Germans. Here, everyone works hard to make it the best time of the year. Below is an essay I wrote about traditional German Christmas markets to give you a taste of the local flavor…

Visiting the Christmas Market

• During Advent, the four weeks before Christmas, the old centres of German cities, towns and villages are transformed. The streets are taken over by die Weinachts Markts, the traditional German Christmas markets that are like mazes of warmth and delight.
• The time to visit Christmas markets is at night. Don’t worry. It gets dark at 4:30 or 5:00. You won’t be up late.
• As you approach the market, you see thousands of electric fairy lights twinkling in the distance. A few metres closer and you will see the glow of candlelight and red coal embers burning from the wooden booths. It looks warm enough to stop you from complaining of icy toes and red, frost bitten noses.
• As your eyes adjust to the light, all the scents of the season will strike you. The smell of fresh gingerbread mingles with the aroma of roasting almonds and water chestnuts. People walk around eating from paper cones filled with Mandelbrot, soft molasses cookies. Others have cookies cut into Christmas shaped hanging from ribbons around their necks. There are also about six kinds of German sausages sizzling over charcoal on huge iron grills.
• There is another sweet odour in the air. Something fruity and spicy. The smell comes from a drink called glüwein. It’s a red wine mixed with spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon zest and a little pepper that is cooked like a soup. Adults drink it from dark blue mugs when it’s piping hot to take the edge off their shivers. There is no official drinking age in Germany, so many parents offer their children sips of the brew to taste, but no one gets drunk. Heating the wine makes most of the alcohol evaporate. There is also hot chocolate with cream, hot orange juice and heated fruit punch for those who don’t like the strong taste of Glüwein.
• In German homes, the Christkind, or the Christ Child in English, decorates the Christmas tree when he comes to visit on Christmas Eve. The wooden tree ornaments you see in the vendors’ booths are an important part of this tradition. The most popular tree ornaments are simple Stars of Bethlehem fashioned of straw and sewn with thread. There are enough tiny wooden angels singing, playing trumpets, strumming guitars, or beating on drums to fill an entire orchestra on every tree.
• Other ornaments double as toys. There are miniature rocking horses to be ridden by dolls, there are princes and princesses who jump or dance when you pull the string, and soldier-shaped nutcrackers like those in the famous ballet by Tchaikovsky. Even the crèche of the Nativity was considered a toy. New figures would be added to the scene each year. In the past, these handmade ornaments hanging on the tree with cookies and candy cut in Christmas shapes were the gifts children received and these special items could only be purchased at the Christmas market.
• Most of the other items available at the Christmas Market hark back to the days before Gameboy, Playstation and Xbox, but that doesn’t mean there is never any technology used in these old fashioned toys. One very traditional item operates on the heat energy produced by candlelight. Christmas pyramids are elaborate wooden centrepieces built in tiers. Each tier features another scene from the Nativity (the birth of Jesus in the stable) to the Epiphany (the visit of the three kings). Surrounding each tier, are holders for tiny candles. When the candles are lit, the heat they produce turns a fan that sets the different scenes spinning before your eyes.
• Other stalls in the market offer more practical gifts. Farmers sell leather-crafted mittens and hausshoes, slippers, lined with lambskin. Beekeepers sell candles for the Christmas trees and pyramids that are made from the wax that their hives have produced through the warmer months.
• The only problem is getting the chance to see everything. The streets are crammed with people, but its a happy crowd. Toddlers demand to sit on their fathers’ shoulders where they can actually see more than a sea of shoes and legs. Plenty of tired people offer to sit in the empty stroller. Bigger children climb up on top of fences and empty fountains to try to get a better look at all there is to see.
• At the centre of the market, near the old city hall, you will find a giant town Christmas tree. In Frankfurt and other large towns you will also find a stage where every evening you can hear local church choirs perform hymns, local bands playing carols to sing along with and dance school students performing for visitors to the market.
• Finally, you come upon a white and gold two-story carousel decorated with scenes from fairy tales. All the children selected horses with care while grandparents sit in sleighs and young families wave to each other as the organ and flashing lights accompany all the riders on their trips around and up and down.
• The Christmas market pleasures are all simple and old-fashioned, but in the cold dark nights of winter, it’s a visit that lights up all the senses.

P.S. If you read this before noon on Tuesday, December 11, would yo, pretty please, vote for my project blog entry this week.

Post from: Babylune

This is the knowledge that helps me sleep at night and have christened these certainties the three pillows of wisdom. I think these truths make everyone a little more comfortable, so I would like to pass them along to everyone, especially my children.

The three things I want my kids to know are these:

1. Just because things don’t turn out the way you plan, doesn’t mean things can’t be OK.

Be ambitious, work hard and do your best, but leave a little room for life to intrude, for your mind to change and fate to make a little magic. Even in the darkest periods, there is room for the light of hope and to make it shine more brightly, all you have to do is keep breathing.

2. Humor really is the best medicine.

It is impossible to overdose.

3. Love might not conquer all, but if you do it properly, it is the strongest force known to us.

Use love wisely. Use it indiscriminantly. It does not matter which. The more you do it, the more there is. Make it big, leave it out in the universe. Beware of making it too singular, too direct. Love is not a target to be reached, but an energy to be generated.

This entry was inspired by the always inspirational Mama Blogga who is hosting another group writing project this week. Be sure to enter so I can find out what three things you’d like your kids to…

Post from: Babylune

Here is the complete list of entries and the announcement of the winner:

1. Mama Zen was the first to come in with a post in entitled Mistakes…I’ve Made a Few about making “mistakes” that had great benefits for her child. A heart-warming piece that reinforces the idea that mothers are always right.
2. Jenny was in second with Mistakes by Mom about teaching her son to love his neighbor. Warning: If you meet Mini Buff, don’t touch his cars.
3. So Sioux Me sent this post about setting a good example for her daughters and how they treat themselves.
4. My post is up for inspiration purposes.
5. The Mad Cropper is in via a scrapbook page that says something all of us need to hear every once in a while. I’ve been there too Christine. More often than I care to admit.
6. Hamelife submits this personal regret over the six months they lost to the dictates of parenting convention.
7. Jeanie in Paradise describes how she became a dictator. Warning: Jeanie’s very scary description of the banshee wail hits the memory centers hard!
8. The Doc is In! And boy, are the F-bombs flying. So is the parental pride. I understand you, Doc, your shame, your pride, and your f****** temper.
9. Husbandhood has both been in the eye of the storm of a temper tantrum and found the perfect solution for preventing tantrums.
10. This post came from the male half of Marriage Actually about recognizing the individuality of his three children. You may want to strap on an adult diaper before you read it.
11. A Mama’s Rant came in with her post about almost sending her son into the care of a suspected child abuser.
12. The Weary Parent went beyond the call of duty and wrote about one mistake she’s made with each child.
13. Free From Gluten committed a cereal crime.
14. My Name is Mommy made it in with this list of things you should do differently than she did.

I am now putting slips of paper on which the numbers 1 to 3 and 5 to 14 (eliminating number 4, my own post) have been written into my daughter’s pink sun hat.

I am now going into the other room to explain to the baby that she should take just one slip of paper out of the hat.

I am back from the living room.

It didn’t work the way I expected, but it worked. She bunched up about 3 slips in her little fist, took them out of the hat and then took one from her fist with her other hand. She then handed me the number 12.

Congratulations to Weary Parent! Please send me a message to let me know if you would like a $24.95 Amazon Gift Certificate or $24.95 in cash via Pay Pal.

Post from: Babylune