Celebrating Alex’s Birthday
Today we have been celebrating Alex’s 8th Birthday as a family (we had his party last week – see the pictures in the Photo Album). When Alex was born we were very relieved that he came on time and wasn’t born closer to Christmas. Little did we know that we would move to Germany where December 6th is Saint Nicholas Day. Now Saint Nicholas is different than Santa Claus (known as Weihnacht Mann) however some of the American stories and traditions do come from Saint Nicholas. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about these traditions; I want to just share some of the events that happened today.
We started out the day American style by having pancakes with real maple syrup (we brought some back with us from the US this summer). Then we started decorating the house for Christmas although we will get our Christmas tree the week of Christmas as is the tradition for most Germans. Alex also participated in our town’s celebration of Saint Nicholas day where all the children in town go to our Blumenplatz and the various shops give out little gifts (fruit, peanuts, some chocolate & gummi bears). Then we had Alex’s favorite meal known as “Crackpot” (its actually pork tenderloin with potatoes made in a crockpot).
During the meal, Alex pulled out some traditional German cookies and he had learned about the history. He told us that a long time ago they weren’t made with any sugar but the people didn’t like them that way and so they went to their pastor (in reality, it was their priest) and asked if they were allowed to put sugar in the cookies and he said that they could. Krista then asked why they had to go pastor and ask him to put sugar in the cookies to which Alex replied – “Well, in the old days, pastors were like presidents!”. To my pastor friends out there, sorry, you were born during the wrong time.
After the meal, we asked Alex what he would like to do this evening. He asked back, “Why are you asking me?” We replied, “Because it’s your birthday.” Then Alex started doing a little dance and stated “Birthdays rock!!”.
As a little side note, we asked Alex to set up the manager scene in our house (see the picture above). I have to say I really like how he thinks. He didn’t set up all the wise men, angels, Mary, Joseph, shepherds and animals lined up so that you could see their faces. Instead, he has them completely encircling the baby Jesus with everyone gazing up the holy Child. Yep, I believe that’s how it really was.
[Edit Note: After I published this blog, I realized that my title talks about Alex's birthday and the first thing you see is a manager scene. No, we don't think that Alex is perfect nor the savior of the world. We think he's a pretty good kid but no, not Jesus.]
