Christmas Eve was...different. In Germany, Christmas Eve is the bigger day of celebration. They also celebrate on Christmas Day, but most of the big festivities are done Christmas Eve. In the morning we didn't do anything special. I rode my bike to the store to pick up a few things I needed before the long weekend. Everything closed at 2pm on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day/Friday and the day after Christmas/Saturday are both holidays, so all shops would be closed until Monday. HP and the kids also went to the grocery store to pick up some things to tide us over through the weekend. The kids went down for an early nap so that we could all be up and ready to go at 3pm. The five of us made it out the door right around 3:15pm. Many tears were shed in the process and tension was high. It was oddly comforting to know that all families get stressed out on the holidays. We met M, T, L, and Oma D at church for Christmas service. It was an evangelical church, so different that I was accustomed to from the very start (I was raised Catholic). About 90% of the service was the children's group acting out a play to explain the birth of Jesus. The church was absolutely packed, making it was hard to hear or see anything. I did enjoy reading along as everyone sung in German. The service lasted just under an hour and then we made our way home. We stopped at the house real quick and I grabbed all my presents for everyone. We went back to M's house, where we had coffee and cake before we opened presents. As expected, the kids had about a thousand presents to open. It was fun to watch the excitement in their faces and to relive the magic of Christmas through them. Before the kids were done unwrapping everything, I started helping M get dinner ready. Dinner was steak, potato/almond ball things, and salad. Everything was delicious, as usual. I enjoyed everyones company, though being around the two families (who are also essentially family to each other) made me miss my family. This was my first Christmas completely away from my own family. I have been apart from my siblings and my dad for one Christmas or another, but I'd never been away from my mom. I guess this is what growing up is all about? I was home around 9:30pm and spent half an hour on FaceTime with my family before I went to bed. Thank goodness for technology!
Christmas Day simply did not feel like Christmas. In the morning I hung out with my host family a bit. The kids had some more gifts to open from family members who had sent packages in the mail. HM cooked a Christmas goose, which is apparently her tradition. I don't know if I had ever eaten goose before. It was pretty good. After lunch with them, I headed out to Ansbach to have Christmas dinner with the Martin's. It was much more like the kind of Christmas dinners I have at home with my family, though with a little bit of a British touch. Gail is from England and Richard is from the US. Everything was simply delicious and the company was excellent. I've known them my entire life. I guess I got a little piece of family through them too. After dinner, Eddie and I headed into town. We ended up at a bar, where we sat and chatted for the next several hours. I finally made it back home around 1am.
Both days were nothing as they would have been if I had been at home with my family. They weren't inherently bad in any way, just completely different. I had many moments of overwhelming happiness, with a few moments of sadness and missing my family sprinkled in. All in all, Christmas was good to me. Between spending time with my host family, the neighbors, and the Martin's, I felt loved, welcomed, and appreciated. In the end, that's what the holidays are all about.
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