Yeah, I said it, Merry Christmas!

I have many complaints about Germany . . . but that is a subject of other posts. I have one thing that I love about Deutschland -- Christmas!!!

  Wednesday night at the main Christmas market in Kiel.

When I grew up, my neighbors and my family friends all celebrated Christmas. I went to Christian school for years and was an every-Sunday-sing-in-the choir churchgoer. So some time around the middle of December, as a child, my farewell became, Have a Merry Christmas!. In return, I got, "You, too."

In high school my world got bigger. I was never sure who celebrated Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan or nothing. So I started saying Merry Christmas only to the people I knew for sure celebrated that holiday. When I moved to New York, I adopted, "Happy Holidays" and sent it out to everyone. It was just easier. Oh, it was the ugly stepsister to "Merry Christmas" but it had to be used, instead. I even sent out Happy Holidays or Season's Greetings cards. Oh, they were elegant, with a sophisticated snowflake design or winter landscape. But they were not beautiful or heartwarming. No family gathered around a tree. No tree. No baby Jesus. No manager. No star. No chubby-faced toddlers running down stairs to see what Santa Claus brought them. No Santa Claus. No reindeer. No nothing.

Germany has all the Christmas accessories and it is the only holiday that people care about.

Very unfortunately, activities during the 1940s got rid of most of its Jewish population. There is little talk of Hanukkah. Plus, Hanukkah's prominence on the American calendar is a relative recent event and the result of its chronological closeness to the present-heavy Christmas holiday.

Also, unfortunately, the Islamic community here is not as vocal as it is in the U.S. The Turkish population has not melded in to mainstream society, so there is almost two communities here. I have not gained entrance to that sphere, so I am not sure what happens during December. I have not heard anyone mention Ramadan here nor have I seen mention of it in print.

So, all I can do is wish everyone, Frohe Weihnachten. Merry Christmas.

Actually, it is Merry Christmases. Christmas celebration starts Christmas Eve and continues covers the evening of December 26.

Of course, this is all very closed-minded of me. I make no excuses. I love Christmas. I am lazy. I like discussing Christmas and all its trappings. I love the music. I love the sentiment. I love the good times that sprout from the holiday. I love it all. I think if I were not raised Baptist, I would still love Christmas. It is just so happy and fun.

For a few weeks a year, that is Germany -- happy and fun. There are Christmas trees, Weihnachtmann (a German variant on Santa Claus), lights and Christmas markets everywhere.

Every German city has several Christmas markets. They are all a little different but share a few common traits -- spiced wine called glühwein, no chairs, würstchen (sausages), kartoffel puffer (kind of like potato fritter), sauteed mushrooms, and people in good spirits. I have been to Christmas markets in Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Kiel. Each city offered a complex of tents selling candles, scarves, sweaters, Christmas decorations, gloves, candy, puppets and jewelry, but there is some variety. I had some awesome tapas a few weeks ago at Cologne's Christmarket near the Dom. Some markets are better than others. I preferred the market at the Alster Lake to the bigger one at the Hamburg Rathaus (City Hall) and the market at Neumarkt to the one at Cologne's glorious church.

Didgeridoo players at a tent selling food at the main Christmas market in Kiel.

Asmus and I exchanged presents today. The Germans prefer to give gifts on Heiligabend (the Holy Evening, Christmas Eve). Asmus handed me a certificate that said I had received a subscription to America's version of Vanity Fair magazine. I already gave Asmus his gift of an ice cream maker a week ago. We had company and I thought we would make them some homemade ice cream. I got him a secondary gift, so that he would hav something to open on Christmas. Well, I have lost my husband to Civilization IV video game. He has said about three sentences to me since he tore the paper off the box two hours ago. I am proud and a little sad at the same time.

Season's Greetings!

Viva Kiel Week!

Because of its seaside location, Kiel is a popular tourist spot.

Tourists flood this town every summer.

I know why.

Of course, there are the beaches [I guess that is why. I have never been to them. I cannot find the fun in sitting in dirt for hours at a time.] but the city programs events all the time.

There were outdoor concerts every weekend.

A few hours ago, I grabbed lunch at a flea market that had taken over all of downtown. I am not one for picking over other people's garbage but I have a weakness for cool drinking glasses, interesting dishes and fun purses. I looked around and saw all these things that I wanted and decided that I had to leave.

A family of jugglers came to town.

"The Little Prince" was staged.

Yesterday was the open house for the Kiel Opera. There were performances inside and outside the opera house.

The biggest event of them all is Kieler Woche ["Kiel Week"']. For seven days at the end of August, there were major and minor musical acts on stages scattered throughout the city. Some are on their way up. Stefanie Heinzmann won one of Germany's televised talent contests and played. Madcon, a Swedish hiphop group that made a hit with Frankie Valli's "Beggin'", played the night after Stefanie. There are some acts on their way down. Paul Carrack was playing one night as I walked alone. The voice was familiar but the name was not. He had some moderate success alone in the 80s and he was one of the lead singers of Mike + the Mechanics and Squeeze.

There was also a lot of stuff with boats. I saw none of it. Because of its location on the water, regattas are a big deal. We had four friends come visit from Hamburg. They were going to sail on the ship of the father of one of our guests. I get incredibly seasick, so I dropped out at the last second.

The best part for me was the International Food Show. A block away from our house was food from around the world. Germans are not the most adventurous people but for some reason, they open their culinary minds up for one week and taste everything. I had food from Czech Republic, Rwanda, Argentina, Nepal, Poland and India. I never had Rwandan food but it had similar ingredients to cuisines found in the Caribbean. Like, I definitely tasted yucca and I know there were plaintains.

A meal from "Nepal"

I even had some Norwegian wine. I am sorry to say that sucked. But the Guinness at the Irish tent was as good as it was in Dublin. The Malbec from the Argentinean kiosk was wondrous.

The crowd outside the ersatz Ireland. Throughout the day, musicians played, like the tent was a pub along the Liffy and not thrust against a German opera house.

According to Kiel tourism officials, more than 3 million people came for Kiel Week. Perhaps they are counting some of us a few times. I was "there" every day a few times a day. But I ain't hating on them.

Downtown Girl

I have finally become a Downtown Girl. I live in the midst of all that is happening . . . in Kiel, Germany.

Asmus got some IT work for a bank in the town of Kiel, so we moved last March. Sorta. We still have the Hamburg apartment but we also rent an apartment in Kiel.

Before I arrived, I was a bit frightened. Everyone. By "everyone," I mean every person to whom I said the word "Kiel." Everyone said Kiel was ugly and boring. Asmus lived here for months before and he said it was boring and ugly.

I wasn't sure if something was wrong with me but when I came to scope out an apartment in March, I found Kiel to be your average-looking town. It was not Paris but it was not Gary, Indiana. I suspect people are remembering an old incarnation of the town or repeating what their parents' said.

I scooped up an apartment in the heart of Kiel. We walk everywhere. To restaurants, to the sea, to the train station, to the gym, to the grocery store, to bars. I love living in the middle of everything. I grew up on the edge of Philadelphia. My first apartment was in Northern Liberties. That rocked. I was next to the fun but in the middle of the noise. But Germany is not as fun or as loud as Philadelphia, so it is great to be in the middle of everything.

I am a block away from two ponds -- the Kleiner Kiel and the Grosser Kiel. The Kleiner [smaller] is closest to me. In the middle of the summer, landscapers mowed the lawn and let the clippings flow into the water. The two Kiels have not looked good since then.

Since May, a fountain spray water from the Kleiner Kiel back into the Kleiner Kiel. The clumps of algae or whatever float on top. The spire of the old Rathaus [German for "City Hall" pokes up behind the Kiel Opernhaus [Opera house].

That is the ugliest thing about this city of 280,000 that sits on the Baltic Sea [that's the East Sea to Germans].

A lazy summer day in the park next to the Kleiner Kiel