We spent our Christmas holiday at Annette’s parents’ house in the small village of Lauenhagen, in northeastern Germany. Although this was not my first Christmas in Germany, it was my first here with children.  Now that I speak a fair amount of German, it should have been simple for me to follow the rituals of Christmas here, but I have to confess that some of them still don’t make sense to me.

In America, we do a pretty good job of keeping Jesus and Santa Claus separate at Christmas time.  We all know that Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, a drama that is re-enacted in still lifes and living crèches across the country.  Perhaps we attend church on Christmas Eve to remember and celebrate the birth of Jesus.  And on the night before Christmas, Santa Claus, who with his elves at the North Pole has been working all year long on presents for the good girls and boys, climbs into his heavily-laden sleigh and, led by the red-nosed Rudolph, circles the globe.  He descends chimneys, delivers gifts, fills stockings, and downs milk and cookies.  Pretty straightforward.

der Weihnachtsmann

In Germany, at least in the areas I have been frequenting, there’s a different story circulating — one that I am having trouble grasping.  Gifts are delivered sometime during the late afternoon of Christmas Eve.  The deliveries are made by “Christkind” (the Christ Child), who is helped by “Der Weihnachtsmann” (Santa Claus).  When I ask Germans how the Christ Child and the Weihnachtsmann get around the globe so quickly with all those gifts, they are evasive, and murmer that the Christ Child is sometimes depicted as having wings.  So how do these co-conspirators get into the houses, and how do they know that nobody will be around when they do?  Silence. Blank stares.  The obfuscation and ambiguity are all the more curious coming from Germans, whom I have generally found to be very rational people.

Since I am a guest in their fine country, I am inclined to give Germans the benefit of the doubt.  I am pursuing the theory that the Germans’ story of Christmas is a noble attempt to resist the commercialization of this holy holiday.  The teaming up of baby Jesus with Santa Claus could be a metaphor for keeping the true spirit of Christmas alive.  This may be the case, but frankly, I don’t see children buying it.  Better to tell children the truth about Jesus and Santa Claus — that they are two sides of the same celebration — because at least the true stories make sense.

Despite the lack of a coherent, reasonable Christmas Story, Annette, our daughters and I had a fun and relaxing Christmas with Annette’s parents and relatives.  The weather was too warm for snow, but we did go for a few lovely long walks and bike rides.  I have posted numerous pictures in the Gallery called “Christmas in Lauenhagen.”

Annette has a number of uncles, cousins and in-laws who are hunters.  Her uncle Klaus is probably the most avid of her hunting relatives.  Fortunately for him, he owns several forests abundant in wildlife, and he has the means to organize multiple hunting parties each year.  These are parties in two senses of the word: a large group of people headed into the woods, and a celebration with family and friends.

In mid November, Klaus hosted his annual fall hunt near the hamlet of Lauenhagen, about one-and-a-half hours north of Berlin by car. Annette’s parents live in the village, as does her uncle Hartmut, who farms the surrounding land.  Klaus’s large country manor house dominates the approach to Lauenhagen.  Another uncle owns a house nearby.

The hunting party began with a dinner on Friday evening in the hunting lodge, a renovated stone barn located on the far side of the courtyard in front of Klaus’s house.  Annette and I missed the dinner because we had tickets to see a concert in Berlin that evening, but we arrived on Saturday morning in time for the pre-hunt breakfast.  We borrowed rubber boots  — Gummistiefel — and loaded up on eggs, bacon, rolls and coffee.  We then gathered with the other participants in the courtyard.

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Clärchen’s Ballhaus

A few weeks ago, Annette began talking about visiting Clärchen’s Ballhaus. She said it was one of Berlin’s oldest dance halls, a place where one could go to ballrooom dance on any day of the week.

Talk of ballroom dancing makes me nervous, but I have learned to mask this involuntary response with stoic enthusiasm: “That sounds interesting. We should check it out sometime.”

Annette grew up breaking hearts on the (ballroom) dance floor. She loves to dance, and I am sure that the partners of her youth loved to dance with her.  I am a relative late-comer to ballroom dancing.  My parents offered to sign my brother Tom and me up for ballroom dancing lessons at the New Haven Lawn Club when we were in our early teens, but I considered myself too cool to take advantage of the opportunity.  These days, I am one of the less cool dudes on the ballroom dance floor. The lessons that Annette and I took together in Keene just haven’t seemed to stick.

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