Zweite Advent - 2nd Advent

The Germans really know how to do Christmas well. The cold & darkness suit it far more than the sweltering heat. I love how everyone decorates their houses from the 1st Advent with traditional wooden ornaments, candles everywhere, fairylights, and the houses are all warm and cosy and you want to sit by the fire and eat lots of homemade delicious xmas biscuits, florentines and cakes. Windows are decorated and so are trees outside so when you drive along any residential street it looks festive and happy and inviting. The whole of December is celebrated, especially each Advent or Sunday, and then there is Barbara Day, Nikolaus Day today and more I don’t know the name of yet. The Xmas Markets everywhere give you a place to go that’s interesting for kids and adults alike every day/night of the week and kids are continually make stuff for Christmas. This “gemütlich” atmosphere makes the winter freeze completely bearable.

We took off to see JD’s family on Saturday and were nicely surprised to see that the weather had warmed up to 7 degrees which felt positively warm. And made walking in the forest near sunset gorgeous. I felt so energised from being with all those old trees that I couldn’t sleep much that night. Sunday was very lazy, and it was raining so we didn’t do much at all. Visited friends in Braunschweig on the way back. It was pouring when we left and the drive back wasn’t fun. It was so hard to see and then we saw the temperature (most cars here have thermometers) start to drop which is scary because if it drops to 0 or below in those conditions, it can turn to black ice in an instant. It bottomed at 2 degrees so we were OK, but we were so happy to see the exit for home.