Christmas Day

On Christmas Day we woke up to four inches of fresh snow that had fallen overnight.

Santa had come to our house and he left a note that answered Oscar's question.  Oscar asked me several times if I had written the note.  But he never asked Tina...

8GB SDHC memory card

Western Digital external hard drive.  Nice.

I got tired of wrapping...

Santa brought the remote-controlled cars.   These were extremely popular with the boys...

...and with the stockholders at Duracell.

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).