I like to think of January here as an apology for November. November is dark, damp, cold, and gray – oppressively, endlessly, hopelessly gray. December is brighter because of the lights at the Christmas market and the crispness that sharpens in the air as fall unfurls itself as winter.
And then there’s January, our month of big skies, fresh cold, and spectacular sunsets. Watching night fall is watching an artist at work.
Accustomed to this in January, we were surprised by the days of fog that limited visibility just to the end of the courtyard. The world melted away into white, into gray, and January gave us November vibes.
But the air was full of crystals, and the crystals created their own art.
I was surprised by the brightness of the kitchen this morning and looked up to see the half-moon that had created a reflection of window panes on the floor. The sky was newly clear and I could see the sun beginning to rise as I rode my bike through cold that crackled, everything still covered in last night’s frost. This was January as we know it, coming back after a short rest.
December is a dark month here in central Germany. It was a dark month where I grew up, too, in a place that averages about 200 cloudy days a year. But December feels somewhat less dark than November, likely because the Christmas Markets and the special events that take place during Advent make this month seem brighter.
Today is our last day of school before the holidays and the days will grow longer soon.
As a treat, the sun has broken through the clouds more than once in the last week, if just for a few minutes at a time. On two occasions, this delightful happening coincided with a time in which I did not have a lesson, so I pulled on my coat and went straight outside. I stood in the direct path of the rays, tilted my face skyward, and soaked in what my body had desperately missed.
For the past weeks, we’ve been keeping it cozy at home. Our paper star hangs in front of the balcony door in the kitchen and I’ve been burning candles in the living room. I got into the mood to bake earlier this week, a rare thing indeed, just to bask in the scents that would fill the kitchen. Evenings have been spent cuddled under blankets on the couch, drinking tea, reading, watching.
We’ve almost made it to the darkest day of the year.
As I write this, the sun is struggling to show itself through steel-gray clouds that held rain earlier today. I’d prefer it to snow, but the climate here is such that the beginning of December is significantly colder than the middle, and Christmas itself has been remarkably warm each of my years here. I am expecting this to be the case again, but there’s always a wish for a white Christmas. I wanted a white Christmas growing up, regardless of not celebrating, and remember equal numbers of years where it was or wasn’t that way.
Snow is, after all, brighter than rain.
But tonight we’ll meet friends at the Christmas market, drink mulled wine, and enjoy each other’s company. We’ve been there in below-zero temperatures, in the rain, and in a surprise snow flurry, so the rather warm weather of today, leaving the earth smelling more like spring than winter, should round everything out nicely.
The communal warmth of December comes exactly when we need it to, and it’s not a bad thing to come together with others at a dark time.
Happy holidays, happy New Year, and all the best to you and yours.
Two years ago, my partner and I went to an American Thanksgiving celebration in Munich hosted by friends from Singapore. Shortly thereafter, memories of turkey with cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie still on our minds, we decided to make Thanksgiving a feature of our intercultural life together.
Without thinking much of it a year ago, I suggested to my parents that they spend the following Thanksgiving in Germany. It had been strange, they said, celebrating with their friends and their friends’ children with none of their own children around. “So come to us,” I said, and they booked flights. “We’re hosting Thanksgiving,” I told my partner after one phone conversation not too many months ago. It took us both a little by surprise.
In the train station just moments after my parents arrived on Friday night, my partner turned to me: “I hope the turkey’s not frozen.” As a group, we agreed that it wasn’t and that we’d adjust if it was. In my dreams, I was up to my eyeballs in vegetables while my partner was out trying to catch the turkey, which had inexplicably morphed from being frozen to being alive. With our oven schedule dictating our Saturday morning alarm, we woke to the first blue sky seen in a week. A good omen if there ever was one.
Although we’d one day love a Thanksgiving with thirty-odd people, this year’s gathering was small. Along with my parents who spent the day preparing with us, doing the normal daily life things that people who live far apart don’t do together, we hosted my partner’s parents and a couple of friends who knew of Thanksgiving from American television and film. It was a first Thanksgiving to host, a first Thanksgiving to attend, a first Thanksgiving celebrated in Germany. Firsts for us all.
In the living room of our one-bedroom apartment, we rearranged the furniture to seat everyone around the coffee table. In the kitchen, we laid a table of turkey and cranberry sauce (the essential ingredient of which my parents brought from the US), two kinds of gravy, mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, lemony rice, green beans, and baguettes topped with squash and ricotta cheese. Later came pecan squares, pumpkin pie, real whipped cream, and ice cream. We served beer, wine, and Glühwein (mulled wine), and rounded out the evening with a round of our favourite schnapps.
Somewhere between turkey and dessert, my mum suggested sharing what we’re grateful for. This is something my family has always done, and I told the group about the lists we have written in the past and tucked into the purple Thanksgiving folder that comes out once a year. With some wet eyes (or water in the beard, as the German expression goes) and pauses for translation into one language or the other, we went around the table and shared a little of what was in our hearts.
By the time the kitchen was clean in the wee hours of the morning, my throat was sore from talking and my face from smiling. Had gravity not been pulling me firmly to the ground, I would have soared. To look around a room and feel so much love, to hear the same well wishes and hopes spoken in different languages, and to feel so much at home among all of it is a moment for which I am thankful.
Bad Herrenalb, Germany – February 2023
Photos, travels, musings, and ideas on education by someone trying to make the world a better and more peaceful place
By Rebecca Michelle 