Deck the Halls

It’s 10am on December 11th and we’re sipping our first Glühwein of the holiday at the train station in Lina’s hometown. Something went wrong in the communication process and we have some time to kill before her grandpa arrives to take us to the village in the middle of nowhere Germany. The sun is shining and at 10 degrees it’s not as cold as we had expected. Ben grumbles as we slowly shift the conversation from English to German.

It’s surprisingly easy to settle into Christmas time at home. Over the next few days the temperatures drop down to just below freezing. We enjoy the opportunity to snuggle into the thick feather bedding and bundle up as we go for walks through the frosty fields. Of course we start off with ambitious stretching goals. But the days are too short and our willpower too weak to get much done besides seeing friends and family.

We visit Lina’s grandpa and the village witch (Lina’s grandma Karin). On a stroll through their nice garden Karin forces a newly knitted hat on Ben who can’t escape quickly enough. She also updates us on the 19 (!) cats that now live around their house. In the meantime the wild pet pig (aka their dachshund Milli) has found a way to escape the garden and get herself some booty in the village (she’s in heat). We spend 15min chasing her around and marvel at the stamina of such a porky dog.

We bake Plätzchen with Lina’s sister and her nephew. Because they taste so good Lina has a hard time sharing any of them. We crack walnuts with her dad and eat fondue with her mum. To make the most of being in a dairyful country we also have lots of cheese and bread with Schmand (a slightly lighter clotted cream) for dinner. Ben chops some wood and Lina cooks the traditional Christmas Day soup twice (the first one didn’t taste of anything).

We watch some fairytales on TV and listen to the Christmas classics while decorating the tree. One area is always reserved for the “English Corner” where we put our travel baubles from places we’ve visited and all the colorful tinsel that has been banned from the German section of the tree. The result is 85% tasteful and 15% tacky.

Ben succeeds in porking up, gaining four kilos in three weeks. He also gets his hair dyed purple to reaffirm his youthfulness. We watch a Christmas concert in the church and marvel at the little primary school brass band playing really well. On Christmas Eve we watch quite a modern rendition of the nativity play where women are CEOs of companies (preposterous!) and the world is engulfed in war (not that far off the mark).

As always the holidays rush by too quickly. Soon enough we find ourselves shivering at the train station in our hot weather clothes. We try to savor the feeling as much as we can since we’ll be returning to the scorching Namibian summer just in time for New Year’s Eve.