It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas--Woche 44

What a week! It seemed to fly by, again.  We had some snow flurries, and the weather turned really cold, with a really cold wind.  We, of course, had the everyday stuff going on.  The kids were busy with school and hockey, music and such.  I kept myself busy working on Christmas gifts.  Dan traveled again to Antwerp this week.  But, we added some exciting things into the schedule!

Dane was invited to play in his first real hockey game (not just the house league).  He played well, and they won.  It was a good start.  We don't know if he'll get asked to play again or not, but it was fun to be able to watch him play on the whole ice again. 

We had our ward Christmas party on Friday.  They had a dinner and small program.  Dane played the saxophone with his teacher in 3 more small duets.  He did okay.  Dan and I did a waltz.  We were only together for just a couple hours at the beginning of the week, and then a couple more on Friday night.  We had to choreograph the whole dance and practice it all in those 4 hours.  We got it done, and it didn't turn out too badly. We were pleased.

In Austria, there are two visitors that come to the children in December.  One is St. Nicolas and the other is Krampus.  Krampus is a very scary looking devil type creature.  They have decorations and candy that depict both people.  St. Nicolas is a guy kind of like our Santa Claus, but he wears different clothing.  He comes to houses and fills nice children's shoes with oranges, nuts, or candy.  He comes on the 6th of December.  However, these Austrians sure have it figured out.  Instead of threatening with coal, they threaten with Krampus.  On the 5th of December, Krampus goes out into the night and carries off all the naughty children.  He then takes them to hell, where they are turned into more Krampus' or else get eaten by Krampus.  After hearing the story of how things work around here, and seeing pictures of Krampus on Facebook, Deagan has decided that it might be better for him, if we moved back to Indiana.  He has asked several questions about Krampus, what he does, how he does it, and what becomes of the naughty children.  He is not so sure that he will make the cut, and is more than just a little nervous.  These Krampus' really do go around town at festivals scaring little children into being good.  As we were driving by our little mall where I do my grocery shopping on Friday evening, we saw  a group of them with St. Nicolas at the little festival.  They carry chains and big bells to rattle at all the children.

We found a store that carried Kinder Tracht (kids traditional clothing).  We were able to outfit the kids.  I heard Dane in the dressing room, "These lederhosen are the most comfortable pants I have ever worn."  (This coming from a kid, who a couple of months ago, said he would never be caught dead in them).  Dyllan wore her dress to church, and Dane was so upset that he couldn't wear his lederhosen, he humphed all the way to the church.  When we got home, he promptly changed into his stuff--"just to break it in".  We're excited that all the kids like their new outfits.  We decided to make them their Christmas outfits for this year.  We decided to buy them the traditional clothing sooner rather than later, so that we would have places that we could wear them to, but I think that Dane is hooked and will wear them back in Indiana as well.  We might have to buy a few more pairs in the next sizes up, just to keep him stocked up after we move. 




We had a little Christmas get-together on Sunday afternoon.  In previous years, we have always done a caroling party, or a Christmas dinner party at our house.  We decided last minute on Saturday to do a snack, wassail, and friends party. With such late notice, we only had 2 families that could make it, but we had a great time anyway.  There was good food, good friends, and we played Christmas and other games.  A good time for all.  I'm not able to keep up with all the traditions that we would have done at home, but we are still trying to hit the major ones.  It is working.  The kids still feel like it is Christmas, but we're not competing with homework and hockey time. 

So far, so good.  No Krampus, . . .  yet!

Is It Christmas Yet??--Wochen 42-43

Our Tree

The last couple of weeks have been filled with holiday cheer!  We decorated the entire house, including putting the tree up, a week before Thanksgiving!  That is a Baker record.  Normally, we wouldn't get the stuff out until after Thanksgiving dinner.  We felt justified in doing so because Dan doesn't get any time off work for Thanksgiving, and because we are leaving for home a few days before Christmas, and wanted to make sure we got to enjoy our decorations.


Dan went on a trip to Indiana.  He spent an entire week there, shopping for items to bring home to us!  I think he went to a couple of meetings, too.  Well, actually, he went to a lot of meetings, and had to do all the shopping late at night.  Thank goodness for 24 hour Walmarts.  The night crew was getting used to seeing him at 4:00am when he couldn't sleep.  He was able to work out some of the details of his new job, and is now in the middle of finalizing the funding for his new organization.  Unfortunately, that is requiring more travel than any of us would like, including multiple trips to Antwerp with more to come before the end of the year.

Dan eating some chesnuts. 
Not roasted by an open fire,
but roasted none the less.

After Dan got home, he and I went shopping to a Christmas Market at the Rathaus.  We had fun wandering through the different stalls of Christmas wares.  We ate some Langosh followed by roasted chesnuts, and chased that down with garlic soup served in a bread bowl.  The market itself, was very Christmasy.  People were bundled up and drinking Gluhwein (spiced wine) and Kinder Punsch (kid punch).  Interesting to note, that people are drinking these out of real ceramic mugs.  There are very few disposable dishes here--they are very green.  So, you put a deposit down on the mug.  You may then choose to keep it, or you can return it and get your deposit back.  There are several different markets going on all during the month of December.  Some only last for 1 weekend, others continue through the whole month.  There are 10-15 (that we know about) Christmas Markets in Vienna alone.  They each have their own different feel.  Some have petting zoos, others are entirely for Austrian artists, one is International, and another is medieval, and so on.

The Rathaus is Vienna's city hall.  All of this will be turned into an outdoor skating rink shortly after Christmas. 
They haul away the huts and store them somewhere until next year.

Dyllan and Deagan have hockey practice at a new venue.  They still practice at the old one, but they have added practices in an outdoor arena.  The outdoor ice rink, is mainly for public skating, but off to the side, they have another sheet of ice that the hockey kids can have their practice.  It makes for a cold evening to sit and wait for them for a couple of hours.  The public skate part has always been packed with people.  They keep it open all day and most of the evening, everyday.  They don't close it down to Zamboni it.  Instead, they just drive out the Zamboni, flanked by 4 employees wearing special vests.  The employees blow a whistle if anyone gets too close to the machine.  However, people follow the Zamboni on its laps through the rink.  No one leaves the ice.  This was a weird concept for someone coming from the states, where no one is allowed on the ice with the Zamboni.  Here, if you are dumb enough to get in front of the Zamboni, you probably deserved it.  No one will get sued.

We have continued our dance class.  We are teaching Salsa.  We still only have 2 couples who come, but it is a lot of fun.  We still enjoy dancing as much as we can. 


Christmas decorations on Swedenplatz.
  The balls must be 8 feet across, at least.  Huge! 
They line the entire street for several blocks.

Dyllan got to go to her best friend Chiara's birthday party.  It was at a bowling alley.  Apparently, bowling is much the same here as it was at home.  Dyllan had a great time, and with the bumpers in, scored a fairly high score!  We'll have to try out bowling as a family sometime.

I spent a lot of time online trying to get Christmas presents bought.  It seems that I have spent hours and hours online.  I thought it was supposed to be easier to buy online, but this year, it didn't seem to be.  I had trouble trying to order from the US, while in Austria, to be sent to Canada.  The computer didn't like it much.  The good news:  I think that I have gotten most of the shopping done for the year, earlier than in previous years.  We are all done, except for a few minor things to pick up when we get home.

Dan thought this was a great potty
break in the hotel.

Dan had a trip to Antwerp this week.  When in Belgium, eat like the Belgians.  His work group went out for dinner to a place that specializes in horse meat.  Dan said they even had the stuffed rear ends of horses hanging on the walls.  I guess it would be harder to eat horse if you had to look them in the eyes.  Dan was surprised to find out that the texture was very similar to beef and the flavor was good (so he said), just a little sweeter than beef.  He has not made a believer out of me yet.  I will stick to cow, pig, chicken, and turkey. 


Speaking of turkey, Thanksgiving turned out to be a lot of fun.  We were invited to a friends house.  She had a group of 25 coming to dinner.  It was nice to not have to cook the entire dinner, but it was also sad not to be hosting it.  Dan and I have hosted Thanksgiving for a lot of years, and I missed it this year.  It didn't really feel like Thanksgiving, since Dan had to work.  Rest assured that it sure did taste like Thanksgiving!!  It was a great meal and a great time with friends.  The kids had so much fun with their friends too.  Dan was able to take 1/2 the day off.  And everything turned out great.  The only sad part was:  No Friday Shopping!!  It was, however, the best night's sleep I've had on Thanksgiving night for probably 17 or more years.  And we still got to buy a couple of deals online as part of the Black Friday madness.  So, not all bad.  Also please note, that I'm glad that we are friends with people who can go to the commissary and shop for American products at American prices.  Can you see the price of the turkey that I found at our grocery store?  Yep, 56 Euros for one 19 lb turkey.  I don't even want to do the conversion to dollars.


Dan and I took Dyllan and her friend, Juliana to Naturlich Blonde.  It is the musical of Legally Blonde.  It was in German, but did have English subtitles.  I wouldn't have understood the whole thing without, but I could tell in some parts that the translation was not as good as what was actually being said.  I felt good that I could understand at least a few things.  The play was cute and had some very funny parts, but Dyllan liked Elisabeth much better, because she didn't appreciate some of the language and vulgarity in Naturlich Blonde. 

Dan and I had another shopping date to pick up some Christmas items.  We finally purchased our traditional Austrian outfits.  It is the recommended dress code for Dan's work Christmas party.  We finally had an excuse to not wait any longer.  We still need to purchase some for the kids, but at least Dan and I have ours.  We're excited to fit in a little more here.  The shop we went to had very good customer service.  Customer service is very hard to find here, so it was very refreshing to go to a store where they actually cared about their customers.  It made shopping so much more fun!  Let's face it, what's not fun about Lederhosen?  After we get the kids stuff, we promise to post pictures of the true Vonbakers.