Christmas in Germany 2015

The first thing we did was attend the Christmas party sponsored by our little Offenbach Branch.  The entire Primary of eight childre did an amazing job of acting out the nativity story.

 

Branch President Merkel was the emcee.  Four of his five children were in the nativity scene!

Some of the treats included Sister Walker's chocolate Santa-topped cupcakes

as well as my orange-frosted pumpkin cupcakes.

Sister Obst, RS President, is with her grandson, Ethan (#5 of the Branch President's children).  He is my only attendee in the Nursery.  And so far, he's not excited to be in there with
a strange old lady who doesn't speak his language!

Next, we attended not one, but two Christmas sacrament meeting programs--our own little branch, and the large American Wiesbaden Ward, which follows our meeting.  It was great for me to actually listen to a program in English, rather than having it translated for me.

We were invited to spend Christmas Eve with the Merkel family together with our friends, the Walkers.  Despite being 8.6 months pregnant and wife of the Branch President, Rebecca did a wonderful job of decorating and serving a typical German meal of pork, Knödel, and Rotkohl.  

Although the children do not speak English, 

President and Sister Merkel speak it very well, for which Carlene and I are very grateful.

Each family member gave a little talk, and then the children sang a Christmas carol.

Ethan insisted on a unique pose for the family photo.

But we did get a good shot of the five Merkel children here--

Melody, Vincent, Jessica, Sam, and Ethan.

Christmas day then found us at the Gehrig home for dinner.  Hans, Nora, and their son Lukas speak excellent English, too, so it was easy to visit and enjoy everyone's conversation.  Lukas had recently returned from having served a mission in Korea.  We had the most interesting meal called raclette.  Hans gave Nora this kitchen appliance over 25 years ago for Christmas,
and it has been their Christmas day tradition ever since.

The table was full of all kinds of small dishes filled with meat and vegetables, slices of raclette cheese, and steaming hot potatoes.  Each person sprinkled a layer of food onto their little "shovel," topped it with cheese, and then placed it under the heating element to melt the cheese.  Once melted, you then scraped it off onto your hot potato or a piece of bread toasted on the top of the appliance.  Being the "cheese freak" that I am, this had to be one of my favorite meals ever!  I must have prepared at least 5 or 6 different concoctions, each one better than the last!  This is definitely something I will buy when we get home.  Christmas raclette sounds like the perfect tradition for us, too!

The finale to our Christmas in Germany was for us to be able to Skype with our grandchildren back home.  I was  pleased to see that Rhett and Ollie  liked their Christmas outfits we had sent.

It was great to be able to visit with each of the grand children and feel their genuine excitement.




This totally reminds me of the Christmas when Erin and/or Emily were given dolls--
actually, dolls from Germany, if I'm not mistaken.

Even though Renee and Josten were in the air flying to Germany on Christmas day, Derek had actually already arrived.  We were blessed to have him with us Christmas day, and the rest of his family for the next few days following that.  On December 27 we went to Rudesheim and had a great time showing off a typically quaint German town.

So even though we weren't home with all our family, we had great visits with everyone (in one form or another) and very memorable visits with our new German friends close by.