Dashing through the snow ...

I have to admit that it has been a bit surreal in the last couple of days being part of a German Christmas. The snow has made it pretty special and everyone here goes all out with the decorations, candles, food and drink. It has been wonderful to be with Henny's family as they have their Christmas and we are a little part of it. Christmas here starts on December 24th with church, decorating the tree, presents and a traditional meal of frankfurter and potato salad. Christmas Day itself is like ours, only indoors, with family, food and more presents! Grant entertained the gathering with some magic tricks - fascinating in any language!

At "our tree" in the Burgerwald

Close by this little town of Loehne is the Burgerwald, a "community forest" where people can plant a tree that is dedicated to a person who has a special life event, like being born, graduating, getting married, etc. To our delight, we discovered that Henny's family had planted a tree, a Vogelkirche (which, translated, seems to mean "bird church", but it probably isn't that!) to mark our visit to Loehne for Christmas 2010. So we drove out to visit "our tree" and had a fun time in the snow. Conveniently, there was a geocache nearby, which Sonja found - she is getting hooked! Brahms the dog had to be carried as the snow was too deep for his short legs.

Picnicking in the snow

I went out to do a spot of geocaching yesterday to try to work off some calories, and also because the sun was shining. I managed to find two of the five I looked for, as the snow hid the others. One required a trudge across calf-deep fresh snow for half a km to a lone oak tree in the middle of a field - by that time I was pretty determined to find one!

Have sled, will travel ...

Today we took sleds and met with Sonja's family to walk in the woods. We "picnicked" with gluhwein, beer and chocolate in the snow, and sledded wherever it was downhill. Great fun!