Away We Go: Merry Swissmas!

Christmastime is here in earnest.

Samichlaus weekend was the big kickoff for us. We visited the town of Küssnacht, which has a gorgeous tradition of men parading down the street bearing giant mitres that look like stained glass. We heard the klausjagern (Klaus Chasers) ring their gigantic cow bells through our neighborhood. Tradition is that they chase St. Nicholas from the forest. ...Got me... And we sang carols in German, English, and Spanish at our son's daycare. Samichlaus (St. Nikolas) himself even presented him with the traditional treats: nuts, a mandarin orange, and chocolate, natürlich!

Decorating Big Blue

This past weekend we finally got our tree. I'd been having sugarplum visions of traipsing over in the snow, with our son in tow on his new sled. But the forecast has been against us and we've had much more fog than snow as of late. Feels like Scotland here just up the hill from Luzern! Ah well, so we went across the street by car (in all fairness, we were coming back from grocery shopping). It was actually a good move, because we fell in love with a blue spruce and got it home before we realized how incredibly prickly the darn thing is! Carrying Big Blue home the way I had envisioned would have felt akin to hefting a mammoth porcupine. I wear a raincoat and gloves in self-defense just to water the damn thing. The proprietors of the tree farm were as jolly as Mister and Missus Claus. And the Mrs. was passing out glühwein. She even went "glüg, glüg, glüg, glüg!" as she filled up our cups from the carafe. Pretty sure she was keeping warm out in their little tent with a bit of that herself.

We also managed to visit four Weihnachtsmarkts on Sunday. We drove out to one in Zug (sweet little town between Luzern and Zürich). Then we ODed on three (!!!) in Luzern: two in the Altstadt and one in the Bahnhof. We'd been to the one in the train station already, but I needed another hot dog from Jay's, with onion crispies on top. JA!

Decorating the house has been for us, as I'm sure it is for many, an exercise in nostalgia. Included in the small amount we were allowed to ship from the US to Prague last year, I insisted on a box of Christmas things. So we have an amalgam of ornaments I inherited; things we purchased for our first Christmas together in Mt. Airy, PA; paper decorations and stockings I made by hand as well as beautiful glass ornaments from Prague; and now the new things we've acquired to spruce up (ha!) our Swiss place. It occurs to me that since I graduated college in 2006, I've lived in six different homes. Yeesh!

Still no snow in the forecast. I know those of you back home on the East Coast have had unseasonably warm weather yourselves. But we've got some time yet for the weather to change its mind. Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season!