CHRISTMAS WEEK

We've had a fun Christmas season, and the following pictures will just give you a small flavor. Hank is back on his feet and feeling almost up to par, so we've been out and about quite a bit. Every time I say that, though, I fear you'll think we're never at the office working, and I promise that's not true! The Germans really know how to vacation, though. Most people take many days off. We were warned to have enough groceries for a week, 'cause the markets close for several days--nothing open on the 24th, 25th, or 26th, and never on a Sunday. We could learn a good lesson from that! All the church employees (our bosses, staff, etc.) take a whole two-plus weeks off, from the week before Christmas until the 5th of January, so the office gets pretty quiet with just the three couples tip-toeing around. I thoroughly enjoy it, though!

This first picture was taken on the 14th of December, the night we got to go back to the church for the delayed broadcast of the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. It's too bad that their talks were all so good, 'cause I had wanted to sneak out in the middle to take a picture of the moon. It was just coming over the mountain (I'm using the term "mountain" loosely) as we drove to the church, and I wanted to catch it just as it got to Moroni, but it had risen too high when the meeting ended. So, here we have Moroni blowing his horn at the moon on a beautiful Sunday night. Our church shares the same block that the temple is on, so we get to see Moroni lots. Feels good.

Then, on a lighter note, here's our little Christmas tree that waited so patiently to be decorated. We finally got to him on Christmas Eve day, and he is truly beautiful--creative, but beautiful! The Calls loaned us a string of lights, Sis. Dulinsky gave us some old ornaments (some of which her kids had made 30 years ago!), and then we used some Christmas ribbon to drape down for some color. We like him!

This little nativity has become a favorite of mine. It was carved by the man who carved our bigger set, and I just love it. I'm going to keep it up all year.

And this little guy became our candlelight dinner tree. We bought it at a ward bazaar in Darmstaadt. It was made by someone there. We were going to paint it when we got home, but the paint may not stick anymore 'cause the wax has dripped down. Oh, well... I hope I can at least get the wax off the table!

Dad gave me a surprise Christmas present. I found an envelope under my pillow one night, and inside I found two tickets to the Nutcracker, to be performed by the Russian Ballet Company right here in Bad Homburg!! This is the Kur Theater where it was held.

Anyhow, the ballet was delightful, the Sugar Plum Fairy a true ballerina, and the prince truly charming. Here the Fairy dances for a few of the toys and dolls. A perfect start to the season!!

Here are your ducks, Andy!! If you have perfect eyesight, you can see them as they walk down the front little berm. I took a close-up of them, but thought maybe you're tired of my animal friends! Kind of a gray day, but we took a walk to check on the times of the Christmas midnight mass at the Catholic and Lutheran churches. This is the Lutheran church (the Erloerser Kirche), and you'll see a smidge of its interior two pictures down from here.

This is the inside of the Catholic church on Christmas Eve. We arrived early (about 9 p.m.) and watched the man light all of the candles in the building and various other preparations. The mass started at 9:30 p.m. The inside of this church isn't as "outstanding" as the Lutheran church in the evening, but it has some incredibly beautiful and huge stained glass windows that can't be beat in the daylight.

The Catholic mass had a little more pomp and ceremony than the Lutheran mass, but it was very lovely. They had some candle-bearing altar boys and a small girl who portrayed some part in the Nativity story, as they accompanied her down the aisle and she put baby Jesus in his Krippe (crib or manger) at the back of the church. My favorite part was the "cantor" (I don't know what the Catholics call him, but the Jews would have called him the cantor). He would go to the pulpit throughout the evening and "sing" some scriptures, and his voice was just beautiful. I could have listened to him all night. They also had some other music consisting of a viola, organ, and a woman singing. Of course, the audience would stand and recite some scriptures and sing occasionally, and I was amazed at the endurance some of those older people had to be able to stand for so long and so often. Very reverent and impressive. We could learn a lot about reverence from them!!

And here is the inside of the Lutheran church (The Erloerser Kirche, or Church of our Redeemer). The whole inside of the building is covered in small mosaic tiles, most gold-leafed. It just shines, and many things are depicted on both the walls and the ceiling, including angels, the Savior, and others. The pastor in this church was a woman. She seemed very sincere, but she seemed to lack much fervor. They had a wonderful choir, accompanied by an organ that comes a close second to the Tabernacle Organ (just kidding, but it was beautiful).

So, the Catholic mass was two hours. It started at 9:30 and went to 11:30 p.m. We left the Catholic mass at 10:45 so we could go to the Lutheran mass (just a block away), which started at 11:00. It only lasted till midnight, so it was an hour shorter than the Catholic mass.

One of the highlights for me was the ringing of the bells before each mass. They would ring for at least 10 minutes. So, we heard the bells from both churches--fun!

And here's Hank doing a little tap dance down the "walking" street in Bad Homburg. Many of the cities have these walking streets, where cars aren't allowed and people just meander up and down. They're fun. Of course, there's a car in the picture to blow what I just said, but an occasional car is allowed for one reason or another, especially at night after the stores close.

Here's one more of our Christmas trees. Every night when we would leave work, we could see this tree out over the fields in the direction of Bad Homburg, but we couldn't for the life of us figure out where it was. It could be seen for miles, and we were really curious. Well, Dad finally figured that it was at the edge of the northeast side of BH, and it faces one of our favorite walking areas (where the farmers leave paths between their fields for people to walk through). This picture was taken from our office road, and ...

this one from a path up a little closer...

You can finally meet the Calls now. They are such hardworking people that you'll always find them in the kitchen preparing, cleaning up, or wherever there's a job to do. They were originally called to be Outreach missionaries (meaning they were in charge of activities for young adults of institute age). They were serving in Darmstaadt under the Frankfurt Mission President. Then the need arose to have more family history missionaries, and they were "switched" to the Europe Area Presidency instead of the mission president, and they were trained (as we were) in family history. Their area of training, though, was in newFamilySearch, not indexing. So, we and the Howletts do the indexing, the Calls newFamilySearch. Elder Call also is in charge of installing new computers in family history centers throughout the area, so they do lots of traveling. Anyhow, meet the Calls:

And this was Christmas dinner with a few of the sister missionaries and some couples. We certainly ate well! The first couple on the right are temple missionaries, then the Howletts, then two sister missionaries who work in finance for the Area, Sister Call, and HMHII himself!! The elders were also there, as well as another couple and one more sister missionary.

So, dear people, too many words and not enough pictures. I'll try to do better! We just wanted to share a bit of our Christmas, which was totally relaxed and enjoyable. Our lives are very blessed and rich, mostly due to loved ones like you.