Christmas Eve

When my dad and Susan came in November, they brought some Vegan chocolate chips for Calvin (who is allergic to milk, among other things).  Tina melted them and then the boys dipped Oreos (which mysteriously contain no milk -- we can't figure it out either...) in the melted chocolate and topped them with sprinkles.

I gave the boys a bath while Tina put some presents under the tree.  This required removing the "fence" that had been keeping Sara at arm's length since the day the tree went up.  Calvin tried to keep Sara away from the untouchables but the task proved too difficult.

Next we wrote letters for Santa.  Calvin drew a picture and Oscar asked a very important question.

"Why do you have a red suit?" From Oscar

Then we took pictures by the Christmas tree.

Finally we put out some cookies for Santa.  Santa got two of Calvin's special Oreos and some homemade molasses cookies.

After the boys were in bed, I happened to look outside and noticed that it was snowing (again).

Gingerbread house in a box

Last Monday we built a gingerbread house for Family Home Evening.

Playing in the snow

By my estimation, we have already seen at least two feet of combined snowfall this month.  The boys have enjoyed playing in the snow and "sledding" on some plastic dishes that Tina bought.

Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann!

On Christmas Eve, children in Germany sing "Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann" (Santa Clause comes tomorrow).  The words to this popular song were written by the German poet Hoffmann von Fallersleben (who also wrote the poem that became the German national anthem).  "Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann" is sung to the tune of the traditional French melody "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman" ("Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" uses the same tune).  The lyrics below are those sung by the children in the embedded YouTube video but they differ from von Fallersleben's original lyrics.  I suppose people have added their own lyrics over the years and now there are now several versions of this song.

Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann

Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann, [Tomorrow Santa Clause comes]
kommt mit seinen Gaben: [Comes with his Gifts:]
Wiege, Puppe, Ei der Daus, [Cradle, doll, Ei der Daus,]
Zuckerzeug und Knusperhaus. [Sweets and Gingerbread house.]
Ja ein ganzes Puppenhaus [Yes, an entire dollhouse]
möcht ich gerne haben. [would I like to have.]

Bring uns lieber Weihnachtsmann [Bring to us Santa Clause]
bring auch morgen bringe, [and also bring tomorrow with you,]
Eisenbahn und Roller her, [trains and scooters,]
Baukasten und noch viel mehr, [constructions kits, and still much more,]
Schokolade lieb ich sehr [I love chocolate a lot]
lauter schöne Dinge. [lots of nice things.]

Doch du weißt ja unsern Wunsch, [You know our wish,]
kennst ja unser Herzen. [know our hearts.]
Kinder, Vater, und Mama, [Children, father, and mother]
auch sogar der Großpapa, [and even grandfather,]
alle, alle sind wir da. [we are all here]
Warten deine Schmerzen. [waiting with your painful anticipation.]

The cleanest sidewalk in Germany

Update: Tina found a story about a guy that killed his neighbor with a snow shovel after they argued about whose responsibility it was to shovel the snow.  I took a screenshot and uploaded it to the Picasa album (click the Picasa icon at the bottom of the post)...

December 2010 may turn out to be Europe's coldest December on record.  Snow, ice, and cold weather have caused traffic problems and major delays at some of the world's busiest airports (LHR, CDG, FRA).

The utility company in Wiesbaden responsible for plowing the streets and several other winter services (Winterdienst) is ELW (Entsorgungsbetriebe der Landeshauptstadt Wiesbaden).  ELW's website (English translation) indicates that each resident has very specific responsibilities associated with snow removal.  In short, each resident is supposed to keep the sidewalk in front of their house free of snow and ice between the hours of 7AM and 10PM.  Failure to do so can be cause for fines (probably only in extreme cases) and can also lead to liability for injuries (this is the real concern for most people).

I definitely see lots of my neighbors clearing the sidewalks (often while it is still snowing) but when I have walked Oscar to school I also also seen large sections of sidewalk where nobody has cleared the snow.  I am pretty diligent about the snow removal.  I definitely do not want to be liable for anybody's injuries (there is a bus stop 20 feet from our front door so we get a lot pedestrians walking in front of our house).  On Sunday I shoveled the sidewalk four times.  I did it two or three more times yesterday.  I shoveled it again this morning before I went to work (we got another three inches of snow overnight) and again when I got home.  After I had finished shoveling this morning, I had Tina take a photo of the cleanest sidewalk in Germany (notice that my neighbor to the south hasn't done much of anything with respect to cleaning the sidewalk).

Sara stands up

Sara has been crawling for about one month.  More recently, she has started to use objects in the house to pull herself up.

Visitors from North Carolina

My dad and my step-mother came for a quick visit over the weekend. They were flying through Frankfurt on their way to India. Their plane landed on Friday at lunchtime and then they left on Monday afternoon. On Saturday we went to see Megamind at the movie theater on the military base and then we went out to dinner. On Sunday my dad cooked us all Indian food while Tina and I took the children to church. It was nice to see them again, even if only for a short visit.

My dad had all sorts of problems with configuring Mac Mail to send via Road Runner's SMTP server.  Eventually I was able to get it working for him (no thanks to Mac Mail -- I had to use Outlook on my laptop to get it working and then I mirrored those settings on the Mac).

I got this book (among others) from the German library -- it is a dual English/German book.  Each page has text in both languages.  The book is about animals that each think a different attribute is the most important (the giraffe thinks having a long neck is the most important thing; the beaver thinks having strong teeth is the most important thing, etc.).  Finally the wise owl helps the other animals realize that all of the animals have important attributes and that they are all different.

Halloween 2010

We had a church Halloween party in the early afternoon on Saturday the 30th followed by Trick-or-Treating at one of the Army's large family housing communities.  A fair number of Germans were there too.  Oscar was a spider, Calvin was a candy corn, and Sara was a strawberry.  Tina made all of the costumes.

Oscar loses a tooth

Oscar's first tooth fell out a few weeks ago. We were at home when it happened but he couldn't find the missing tooth.  I think he must have swallowed it.  A few days later he told us that he had a loose tooth. Sure enough, the tooth right next to the hole is now loose.