I love fall.. it comes around every year like an eldery friend. I love the feeling of walking in the crisp night air laced with the smells of a warm fire that escapes from the nahbors chimney tops.
It helps me remember of when I was little and liveing in Germany. I can't help but to say that I morn those days...I miss it so much. I send a kiss to you across the ocean... my other home. You keep memories there for me tied in ribbons till I return to you.
Christmas in Germany is like nothing else. I love the purity of it. The humbleness that I remember the people had in respect for this day. I loved shopping in the open air markets in the evening near night fall, trying to pick out the perfect present for my brother and sisters. The feeling of the warm candied nuts in the cone through my mittens, seeing the inviteing glow of each stall that had a friendly smile waiting for you. toasty potato pancakes with apple sauce you waited in line for for what seemed to be hours but so worth it.
My husband and I have incorparated alot of the tradition that my family exsorbed from being there. We have an advent reath we use on the sundays leading up to christmas. We have saint nicholas oben where we leave a shoe by the door before we go to bed to find a present inside the next morning.
I thought as a little girl that if I left a bigger shoe that I would get more in the morning. regardless I loved whatever My mother put in it and forgot complete about it not being full. This happend a few weeks before christmas it self. It made the antisiation more enjoyable and us more eger for the few mornings left till we woke to mounds of paper coverd boxes.
I remember one christmas we spent with my parents friends who lived in Garmish, Germany. On Christmas morning we openend presents then went to go to the cathedral where the remains of the three wise men were kept. They were in beautiful gold castcets laden with jewels. The cascets were stacked with two of the castcets on the bottom and one on top. The reality of the story I had heard through the years had become so very real in those moments as I looked at every detail and thought on these men's traveles. It was no longer a story, It had become an account of what had happend.
I love my mother, she helped us really experence Germany. She took us to all sorts of places to show us what the people there had accomplished and showed us love for a culture and it's people. I love her for that, and for countless other things.
as I lay in wait for it to get colder and the holiday sesons to begin I am eager, like the little girl I was and still have inside me. She comes out and is reborn this time of year. I am happy when she is able to come and play in the snow and memories.