o come, o come

this last week, i have been reminded of the joyous anticipation of christmas. highlighted at church on sunday, in the shadow of that wreath with four candles ablaze, we meditated on advent - the anticipation, the hope, the joy of the arrival of emmanuel. especially in the darkness of winter, the morning star represents light, life and hope.

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instead of rushing around in stress and bemoaning the darkness, this is a time to be joyful. embrace the crowds, the tasks, the events - we are approaching a great celebration! the shopping, the baking, the parties all add to the excitement of anticipation. my mama has instilled in me an appreciation for a "festival" approach to important days. why celebrate a birthday on just one day, when you can celebrate for a week? i am making a concerted effort to embrace the festival of christmas.

this enjoyment means taking time to stop and appreciate those little moments - and here are a few of mine from the last weeks:

1. decorating christmas cookies with one of my favorite classes
2. baking christmas cookies while watching some of my favorite christmas movies
3. visiting christmas markets with friends
4. snow at last! (for those of you keeping up on the snow bet - it was called on December 20th as golfball-sized flakes fell from the sky - a magical first day of snow)
5. enjoying my favorite christmas market treat - roasted chestnuts
6. spending a wonderful evening with my fellow teachers at our company christmas party. good food, good friends and a great time all around.

i am looking forward to a (hopefully) snowy christmas in bavaria and a relaxing christmas holiday. although i miss my family and the traditions of my childhood, i am doing my best to take in the season and enjoy every minute - thankful for the abundant blessings in my life. ~love~

the strongest of senses

i have long been convinced that smell is the real king among the senses. it compliments and enhances the other senses so powerfully, especially in those times in which we create lasting memories.

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i mean really, a christmas tree without the fresh pine smell - its only half as magical (sorry for all those fake-tree people out there...i've always had real ones). the smell cookies in the oven. the smell of cider on the stove. turkey in the oven. cranberries. snow. even the smell of scotch tape from wrapping all those presents. you've got to admit - the olfactory system is pretty powerful. particularly when it comes to christmas memories.

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last weekend, i went to the renaissance christmas market in durlach. since living in germany, new scents have been added to my christmas memories - crepes. glühwein. sugared almonds. marzipan. i had to smile today, as i caught the scent of the campfire on my coat - leftover from the durlach christmas market. enjoy the scents of christmas, my dears. ~love~

100

well, it has certainly taken me long enough to reach 100 blog posts. it reminds me of first grade, with the 100 chart, where we carefully charted the first one hundred days of school. I brought in a ziploc baggy filled with 100 pennies. Even then, it registered that 100 is a lot more than I thought it was. and now i carry this memory with me, and wonder if anything that i do with those precious little children will be tucked away as one of those deep memories - the kind you carry with you for reasons that are nothing but mysterious.

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to me, it doesn't matter if the kids leave my class speaking fluent english (they won't), but if they can remember learning a word, or a phrase, the emotion that bubbled to life when they first learned ______, even when they are 27 years old, well, i think that is significant. every time i see their eyes light up with understanding, creativity and passion, even if in the next minute they are off in their own world again, it gets me. the times in which i feel a true connection, even with the most difficult kid, those are the times that keep me coming back for more. i hold tight to those moments when that one kid just won't stop talking, or a spat breaks out between two girls who have already learned that particular girl-cruelness even in second grade. i keep planning, teaching, investing, working - in the hopes that the memory of one game, one song, one book, will be more powerful than those wild moments. that, just as i think back to that silly chart with the numbers 1-100 lined in neat rows of ten and that clear baggy of pennies so carefully counted out, they will reflect back with a smile when they hear english words.

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thanks for sticking with me for 100 posts. ~love~

do you know how much that costs?

well, speaking of kids, i just overheard a classic exchange between two young kids (presumably on their way home from school)

one kid tried his hand at rapping and this is a portion of what i heard: (translated for you -although it does not rhyme in english, it did in fact rhyme in german, which kind of impressed me)

"...yeah yeah yeah. yeah. who knows what will happen. we're gonna be rich. and ... buy ... ... ... the whole world..."

at this point, he was interrupted by his companion.

"hey, wait. we can't do that. do you know how much the whole world costs?!"

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i wish i could have heard the answer - i've actually been wondering what the going price is on the world. ~love~

that jolly red man remains illusive

one of the many benefits of my job is experiencing first hand the "kid perspective" of life. on wednesday, i overheard a group of first graders (6 and 7 year olds) having a very serious discussion about santa. as i missed the beginning of the conversation, i'm not sure what brought on this discussion - perhaps the coming of st. nicholas next week? - regardless, there were some very strong opinions being thrown about.

kid 1: well, i don't know about you, but i have seen him. he is definitely real.

kid 2: i have seen him too!

kid 3 (who i am willing to bet has older siblings...just saying): that was just someone dressed up like santa. that doesn't mean he's real.

kid 1: well, how do they know what he looks like, then?

[pause for deep thinking]

kid 2: yeah, maybe we did see people dressed like him, but that must mean that there is a real one somewhere

kid 1: yeah

kid 3: can i borrow your glue stick?

i am constantly entertained by my glimpses into "kid world" - as adults, we tend to project adult thinking and reasoning onto kids, but the reality is, they just don't conform. they adhere to a different kind of logic, which is often baffling and sometimes quite frustrating, but thankfully often entertaining. ~love~

tastes like christmas

as i have lived in germany these 3 + years (i can't believe its been that long!), i have integrated things that i love from home and life in the states with new things that i have fallen in love with here. of course growing up in the nock family (where: "if you're bashful, you starve!") i have a great affection for all things food! for me, the holiday season begins when i smell pumpkin bread baking in the oven. my mama's pumpkin bread is the taste of thanksgiving and christmas and all the good stuff in between and when the holiday season approaches, i can't resist making a few batches.

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this year is no exception. as germans have failed to develop an adequate appreciation for all things squash-realated (spaghetti squash, acorn squash, pumpkin pie...) it is difficult (and expensive!) to find canned pumpkin anywhere. my solution this year was to buy a jar of pumpkin chunks, heat them up on the stove and puree them. i think i have done this before, but for some reason, my pumpkin bread turned out much differently this time around. even though it doesn't taste like home, it still tastes good - good enough for me to share with my work collegues and a few students.

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with nothing to compare the bread to, the bread recieved rave reviews. my very favorite was from a work collegue who took one bite, grinned and said "wow, it tastes like christmas!" that was all the confirmation i needed - the holiday season has begun! ~love~

snow bet

its no secret that i much prefer spring and summer to the cold, dark days of winter. as a result, i am forced to create reasons to be excited about the onset of the winter season. this year, burdened by the looming deadline of my thesis and feeling like i had missed most of summer whilst typing away in the library, i needed a particularly good reason to get excited about the looming dark, cold season. most of all, i needed some teammates. so, i devised the snow bet.

in early october, with the first deep chill, i asked 5 students to predict the first day that we would see snow on the ground in Heidelberg. the snow bet was born.

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you may be interested to know that i have already lost. by a lot. my guess of november 8 came and went, without so much as a flake. also the 15th has faded into memory - with sunshine and blue skies. that means 4 students are hoping for the fame and glory of winning the snow bet, although almost all of them have tried to change their guess in the past few weeks - they don't apprecite, apparently, that the point was to guess when we had no concievable notion of snow or feeling for winter. ah youth.

thanks to the snow bet, i look out my window with anticipation every morning. last night, as i was closing the blinds, i noticed thick fog and a light rain. normally, this kind of weather (affectionaly known to some as a form of "wintry mix") makes me cringe, but the anticipation of the first snow has me a bit giddy with excitement! ~love~