Christmas Eve with the Kochs was like the picture-perfect, traditional celebration that you would imagine to be in a movie or something. Oli decorated everything beautifully, with the tree and gifts all being a surprise. What happened is on the day before Christmas Eve (Helige Abend in German), Me, Oli and Sylvia carried the giant, 4 meter pine tree into the house, being careful that it didn’t scrape the beautiful, 100 year old paintings on the walls of the house, or knock down the old crystal chandelier. As we struggled to push the tree through the tight entryway, people standing on the street outside were staring and pointing:)
Then, the tree was put up in the living room and made stable with a wooden stand. I figured we would then decorate it, but nope. Oli explained that in German tradition, the “Christkind” (kind of like Santa Claus, he is the child that brings the gifts) is supposed to decorate it when he comes to bring the presents on the evening of the 24th. How the Christkind has time to do all that beats me, but I guess it’s just magic:)
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| Jonas in awe of the giant tree |
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| Felix too! |
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| Hehe:) |
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| Oli carefully removing the "tree packaging" |
Well, Christmas Eve rolled around and we went to
the Children’s church service (Gottesdienst) at our local German church at
4:30pm. The church was PACKED FULL of German expats. We watched the old priest
as she guided us through some German Christmas hymns and songs, and then introduced
the group of children dressed up to put on the nativity play. Then 5 little
girls dressed as angles came on stage and began telling the story.
After the service, we
arrived home and immediately Sylvia told the boys to go in their room to play
and wait for the Christkind to come. I was a little confused about what was
supposed to happen now, so Sylvia explained that now the boys, me and her will
all wait upstairs and the “Christkind” will come (technically Oli) and decorate
the tree and put the presents under the tree. When we hear a little ring of a
bell, we know we can come down.
To make the wait not feel so
long, Sylvia brought a platter of chocolate covered Lebkuchen, chocolate truffles,
speculoos cookies and clementines upstairs for us to nibble on.
We played charades
with the boys, and every once in a while we would tell them to be quiet and put
their ears to the floor to see if they can hear the Christkind downstairs. At
one point, we had them look out the window and pointed to a smoky white light
sweeping across the dark sky. Sylvia said, “Look, look, it is the Christkind
leaving! He has come!” The light really did look magical, although I believe it
was just a search light from the city.
A few minutes later, we
heard the light tinkling of the bell. The boys sprinted down the stairs, me and
Sylvia carrying Felix close behind. We stopped at the big wooden door that
leads to the living room, which was closed. We knocked on it, and then it was
slowly opened by Oli, revealing the beautiful big tree, now decorated with
shiny red ornaments, hand-made red stars, wooden angles and, best of all, lots
and lots of real burning candles sitting on its branches. Other candles were
lit all over the living room, on the tables and on the windmill, even on the
piano. A plate of more goodies, including baumkuchen, sat on the table. And, of
course, what the boys were staring at—the gifts. There were 6 piles circled
under and around the tree, each with a card, one with each of our names
hand-written on it.
Everyone was just in awe by
the beautiful tree. We stood together, just staring, even the boys. Then, as if
on cue, Jonas went right over to the piano and began playing Silent Night,
which he could play perfectly now, since he has been practicing it the last
month. Oliver gave each of us a photo-copied paper of the lyrics (in German of
course!) and we all sang along. Then we sang some American Christmas carols
(which I proudly did not need the lyrics for! …well except for the last verse
of Jingle Bells, which I feel like I have never heard in my life). We sang
Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, holding hands and dancing
around, even Felix bobbing his head and getting into it.:) Then, Niki stood up
in the middle of the living room and told a Christmas “story”. This is another
German tradition I never knew about. The children are supposed to prepare a
traditional Christmas story (well, it’s more like a poem because it rhymes)
that they recite for the family on Christmas eve. Niki recited his very well.
We then sang another carol, and then it was Jonas’s turn. He tried out a
longer, more complicated story about good and bad children and how they are
treated by Saint Nikolas. He forgot one part and became a little teary, but we found
the story in one of his books and helped him finish it. Finally, we held hands
around the tree and sang one last traditional religious German carol about Mary
and Joseph. Then, Oli got out some nice fancy champagne and poured me, Sylvia
and himself a glass. We even had “Kinder Champagne” for the boys.
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| Felix enjoying (maybe a little too much..) his Kinder Champagne! |
Finally, it
was time to open the presents. Sylvia took the kid’s plastic champagne bottle,
and we all sat in a circle and spun the bottle. Whoever it landed on got to
open one of their presents! This lasted for a while, until we realized it would
simply take forever if we kept going with this strategy. So, the boys were
finally let loose to open all their presents at once. I was happy to open the presents
my dad had brought with him from New York, but I was also excited to see that
the Kochs also gave me some gifts. Even Jonas gave me a candle hand-made by
himself! From Oliver, I received the famous book, The Hobbit, which he said is
a must read, as well as a guide for Paris (in FRENCH, that makes me worried a
bit..). From Sylvia, I got a funny German comedy DVD about two guys who figure
out how to make legal marijuana (she told me she saw it on a plane once and thought
it was hilarious, but I was still a little skeptical about what she really
thought of me after this gift as well as another book she gave me for Saint
Nikolas day on the 6th , which was about sex and drugs in Berlin..
Did I ever say something that could have given her the wrong idea about me??)
Well, I am happy anyway because the movie looks quite good. They also gave me a
beautiful Swiss watch! I couldn’t believe that they would get me such an
expensive gift, but it is really nice:)
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| Giant box of Legos! Just what they wanted:) |
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| New PJs!! |
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| Mmmhhhh geflugal salat! |
Sylvia was also forced to make some kind of cold fish dish, which she named “German
Sushi”, saying it with a look of disgust on her face. It is made with a layer
of RAW fish, sour cream, more regular cream poured on top, RAW onions and piece
of apple, then another layer of fish, sour cream, cream, onions, apples and crushed
rose pepper (which sounds good but I swear it tastes awful). All I can say is
that I am thankful that I am not the only one who finds these German dishes
disgusting and just inedible, because otherwise I would feel very uncomfortable.
It is quite entertaining to
hear Sylvia make fun of the recipes, telling us about a “How I Met Your Mother”
episode where a couple goes to the boyfriend’s German parent’s house for
Christmas and they are all proud to share their homemade, traditional pasta
dish with a layer of pasta, a thick layer of mayo, another thick layer of pasta
and then over-cooked fish on top. They all loved it, but the girlfriend couldn’t
stand it and felt very uncomfortable. Oliver got a little annoyed when Sylvia
told us this story, saying it was rude and made fun of German traditions.. :)
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| Santa Niki sitting happily at the table with the Weinachtskranz |
After dinner we enjoyed a
little French/Belgian touch for dessert—a real Bouche de Noël freshly made by a
local pâtisserie. I did not know this, but real Bouche de Noëls have a layer of
fruit in the middle, with another thin layer of dark chocolate, a bottom layer
of salty-sweet crunchy biscuit and then all covered with a thin layer of butter
cream. All the flavors of the different layers are supposed to complement each
other to make the perfect taste combination. This is very different from the
Americanized Bouche, which is pretty much a chocolate buttercream bomb with no
flavor other than sugar and fat. This Bouche de Noël, however, was delicious,
and probably one of my favorite desserts now. Sylvia ordered one with passion
fruit/mango inside, which sounds strange but the tanginess of the passion fruit
with the dark chocolate and saltiness of the biscuit was amazing.
The mango passion fruit layer is the rounded one on the very inside, then under it is the dark chocolate mousse, then all around is the buttercream, and on the bottom is the salty/sweet biscuit. What an amazing flavor combination!
Here are the candles that
were on the tree. They are real German ones, made of honey bees wax. When they
burn, you can smell the faint scent of honey in the air.
This is the candle holder with a weight attached used to keep the candle upright on the tree, so the tree doesn't catch on fire and the entire house burns down. Oli says this has surprisingly never happened to him... let's just say thanks to the precise German engineering of these candle holders!
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