Christmas and New Year - Part 1

Well, now that the dust has settled from Christmas and New Year, I can finally get around to writing about it. Many of you have asked how we celebrated the holidays in Burghausen. So here's what I can tell you. We opted not to travel anywhere over Christmas and to enjoy a quiet Christmas, just the three of us, in Burghausen.

Festivities began on Dec. 23, the last day of school, with a short Christmas pageant performed by Ronan's class for the parents. Ronan had been humming several of the songs (in German) at home for the last few weeks. He especially liked one song about the lighting of the Adventkranz, which is the German tradition of lighting candles on a small Advent wreath, each candle representing the four advent weeks running up to Christmas. For more info on the advent wreath, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_wreath. We had a small Adventkranz at home and each weekend that we lit the candle, Ronan would bring out the lyrics to the song and sing it while we lit the wreath. It really seemed to resonate with him and encouraged him to sing in German. I really like this tradition, so I think we will be bringing it back with us.

One interesting thing to mention, which I will write on in future postings, is that we live in a heavily Catholic region here in Bavaria, in fact, the Pope hails not far from here. Schools offer separate religion classes for Catholics and Protestants and ethics class for non-denominational children. Ronan goes to Ethics class. And unlike in the States, the major Christian holidays are recognized in the school and celebrated. As far as Christmas goes, I kind of like it, though can't say how I'd feel if I were in the minority.

For more on our Christmas adventures, please see part II