Posted by Cora
http://corabuhlert.com/2025/12/31/christmas-2025/
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Yes, it’s the obligatory Christmas post.
In past years, December was generally very busy with translation work. This year was remarkably quiet, which is a tad worrying. Though I decided to make the most of the unexpected free time I had and thus I wound up visiting a whopping four different Christmas markets (Bremen, Oldenburg, Vechta and Emden) during the advent season. They were all lovely in their own way and Vechta’s Christmas market has drown a lot since I last visited it back in 2013, when it was literally just three stalls, a carousel and a beautiful nativity scene. Nowdays, Vechta’s Christmas market has two carousels, a lot more market stalls and even an ice skating rink. They also still have the biggest and prettiest nativity in the entire region.
Holiday Decorations
Of course, I also decorated my home festively. In addition to old and new favourites, I also realised that I liked my spooky Halloween window display so much that I wanted to put up something similar for Christmas. So I gathered all my wintery action figures and put them in the big picture window at the front of the house together with all sorts of illuminated houses, votive candle holders and the like. You can see the result below:
From left to right, we have the Madonna of the Glowing Heart (a votive candle holder my Mom loved), a gnome, the Masters of the Universe Classics King Chooblah, a Schleich Eldrador ice monster, my Ruhrpott mug, a Schleich Eldrador ice beaver, the Jar of Lights (a large glass jar filled with a string of lights), the 200X Ice Armour He-Man, a Schleich Eldrador ice rat, the Masters of the Universe Classics Icer, a Schleich Eldrador ice wolf, the Temple of Darkness version of the Sorceress standing on top of an IKEA lantern, the Masterverse Frosta, a Schleich Eldrador ice tiger, a few illuminated ceramic houses and a tree, a sleeping gnome votive candle holder, a light arc, the Four Horsemen Figura Obscura Krampus and Father Christmas action figures, a white deer and another illuminated mini-tree.
The last two figures are a new addition. The Figura Obscura line from Four Horsemen Studios consists of characters from mythology, literature, folklore, etc… and they offer a holiday figure each year. I had been eyeing the Father Christmas figure last year, but eventually decided not to buy him, because he isn’t cheap. However, considering what e.g. an Erzgebirge angel or a Hummel angel or those Hutschenreuther collectible china ornaments cost these days, the price of the Father Christmas figure no longer seemed that unreasonable and I find action figures a lot more fun than Erzgebirge or Hummel angels or Hutschenreuther ornaments (plus, I have examples of all three). So I ordered Father Christmas as well as the Krampus figure to keep him company.
I’m not from the part of Germany, where Krampus is a thing, and only learned of his existence as an adult. For here in Germany, who delivers your Christmas gifts (and who will spank you if you’ve been naughty) is extremely regional. Gift givers and enforcers include Father Christmas/Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, Knecht Ruprecht, the Christ Child (probably the weirdest of them all, since the Christ Child is basically trans Jesus), angels, gnomes/elves, Krampus and Zwarter Piet in the Netherlands. Hereby, Krampus is mainly a thing in the Alps, i.e. in parts of Bavaria and Austria.
The US has embraced Krampus in recent times, probably inspired by the 2015 Krampus horror movie and because he is so delightfully weird. I mean, how can you not love the idea that Santa has a pet monster? And yes, Krampus is Santa’s pal/pet, not his archenemy as some Americans seem to assume. Krampus also isn’t a unique monster – there’s many of them. In the Alps, St. Nicholas travels with an entire flock of Krampuses who parade through villages and towns.
Getting a whole flock of Krampuses for Father Christmas would have been really expensive, but I got him his pal/pet/enforcer. I might also get the black version of the Figura Obscura Krampus, if I ever find him for a good price.
As you can see below, the Krampus and Father Christmas are gorgeous figures. Visually, they are based on Victorian holiday cars, where the modern look of these characters was not yet locked in. BTW, the Father Christmas who brought my presents as a kid did wear the long coat rather than the two-part suit of the American Santa.
Father Christmas also comes with a Christmas tree, a lantern dangling from his bishop’s staff, a bag full of goodies (spare knight’s helmets, actually) and a bunch of toys. Krampus has his switch, a pannier on his back into which he stuffs naughty children as well as bells and chains.
“Come on, Krampus. Work awaits. There are gifts to distribute and children to make happy.”
“And naughty people to punish, Growl.”
“Indeed, Krampus. So let’s get going. It’s going to be a long night.”
Father Christmas and Krampus look great in the window as well. I may eventually get them a Ghost of Christmas Past, because she has those angel/Christ Child/Snegurochka vibes.
Of course, I also put up the Holiday He-Man I bought last year and added Filmation style She-Ra, Skeletor and Hordak figures as a tribute to the 1985 He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special.
“By the Power of Grayskull, we have the Holiday Power.”
Relay, the puppy, is portrayed by a Schleich dachshund.
“No, bad puppy. Bad Relay! Oh, what is happening to me? I feel so strange.”
“Hmm, rhis Christmas spirit must be mighty indeed, if it can corrupt even Skeletor.”
“Noooo! I don’t like to feel good. I like to feel evil.”
I also got myself an advent wreath, for the first time in years. Cause when I was a young kid, my parents had a plastic advent wreath with real candles. Sometime in the early to mid 1980s, it was switched out for a pottery wreath with some gold paint which my Mom made in a pottery class she took. We had that wreath for years and it’s probably still in a box somewhere. If I could find it, I might have reused it. Eventually, the pottery wreath was replaced by yearly changing advent arrangements of pine and fir branches with a single candle. At some point, there was just a thick red candle on a metal plate.
When I decided that I wanted an advent wreath, I knew that I wanted neither live branches nor live candles. So it would be LED candles and some kind of more permanent wreath. I finally bought a metal wreath which matches my midcentury Scandinavian Modern metal mini-tree, added some artificial branches and four LED candles. Getting all this stuff required driving to several stores, including Buss Furniture in Oldenburg some 45 kilometers away, but I do like the result.
My advent wreath with a wire frame, some seasonal greenery and LED candles. It’s sitting on a large cake platter of my Mom’s.
My dining table with the advent wreath and my vintage Scandinavian Modern wrought iron tree.
Here is a closer look at the Scandinavian Modern wrought iron tree, flanked by some votive candle holders. The Mini Funko Pops live on this table, so I just left them there.
Finally, here is the fully lit advent wreath with the lights off. I got the candle in the middle for one of my illuminated holiday houses, because the LED votice candle I use doesn’t lit up all of the windows. Alas, the candle did not fit into the house, so I put in the center of the advent wreath.
Christmas Preparations
Like last year, I was going to spend Christmas at home and alone, decorating my tree and enjoying our traditional family holiday meals, i.e. the apple cranberry cream sauce that usually goes with venison and red cabbage, though I just kept the sauce and ditched the rest, sailor’s curry and Grandma Buhlert’s famous herring salad.
So I drove to the big Edeka store at Jute Center in Delmenhorst very early in the morning of Saturday, December 20, and got pretty much all of the ingredients that would keep for a few days without going bad. I then spent the weekend cleaning up the living room – which tends to be the place where stuff to be dealt with later accumulates. I also took the opportunity to call various relatives and wish them a Merry Christmas.
Regarding the pork for the sailor’s curry (and some of it also goes into the herring salad), I’d learned my lesson from last year and pre-ordered the meat in mid December for pick-up in Monday, December 22, first thing in the morning. And this is where the trouble started, because I didn’t sleep very well during the night before, but still had to get up early in the morning to go to the butcher and pick up my meat once they opened up, all while feeling pretty bad.
I thought a good night’s sleep would help, but it didn’t. I was still feeling woozy and off on December 23. The fact that the weather abruptly changed didn’t help either. This is quite common in North Germany, since the weather almost always shifts a few days before Christmas. We even have a word for it – the Christmas thaw – since it usually goes from cold to mild. This year, however, it was the opposite and we suddenly got strong winds and much colder air blowing in from the East. The air pressure also rose and high air pressure is perfect headache weather for me and also messes up my blood pressure.
Nonetheless, I chopped most of the red herring salad that morning – only the meat, hardboiled eggs, apple and the herring itself goes in on Christmas Eve. I could do this while sitting, so my low blood pressure wasn’t an issue.
When I was about to get started on the beetroot – which have to be cooked for ages in a pressure cooker – the phone rang. It was my cousin Ulrike. She lives in Gütersloh, which is about 160 kilometers away, so I don’t see her all that often. Anyway, Ulrike told me that her brother, my cousin Magnus, his wife Marly and her mother, my Aunt Marlene, were all coming to visit her and her family on Boxing Day. And did I want to come, too? Magnus could pick me up. I told her that yes, I’d love to come, but we needn’t bother Magnus. I would just take my own car. So I now had plans for Boxing Day.
Meanwhile, my neighbour Vladimir carried the tree inside, which turned out to be bigger than expected. I also asked Vladimir to get the ladder from the basement for me. In Germany, the Christmas tree traditionally doesn’t go up until Christmas Eve and stays up until January 6, i.e. Epiphany Day. And since I have a natural tree, it’s also not a great idea to put it up too early, so I always decorate it on the evening of December 23.
My Christmas tree, still without decorations, and the ladder. The ugly mustard coloured drapes in the background will hopefully be gone this time next year.
As you can see, the tree dumped needles all over the floor, so before I could decorate, I first had to vacuum. And vacuuming is hard on my back, because the vacuum cleaner was designed for housewives of 1.50 meters or so. I really need to get a new one rather than constantly get annoyed when using this old thing.
Decorating the tree was also rather exhausting and once I finished, I just wanted to go to bed, so I just left all the boxes and the ladder in the living room and decided to deal with them the following day.
Christmas Eve
However, I once again had to get up very early in the morning to get the last few ingredients and other necessities at the grocery store. And unless I got there at seven in the morning, everything would be super crowded. Indeed, at the fish counter, there was already one of those annoying “five slices of this and five slices of that” people who take ages to buy what they need.
Once I got back from the grocery store, I chooped up the remaining herring salad ingredient and made the apple cranberry cream sauce. I should probably share the recipe eventually, since it’s quite easy to make.
Farfalle with apple cranberry cream sauce
After lunch, there was nothing more to do until it was time to light the tree in the late afternoon/early evening. So I decided to lay down for an extended afternoon nap.
As explained before, Christmas Eve is the main event in Germany and the way it works is that there is coffee and cookies or cake in the afternoon. Some people attend a church service in the afternoon (there are at least two), others go to midnight mass and some don’t go to church at all. After the afternoon coffee and church, if applicable, the tree is lit and duly admired. Depending on the family there is singing, poems are recited or the Nativity from the Gospel of Luke is read out. If the family has young children, a Rent-a-Santa may pay a visit. My neighbours have a two-year-old and Santa came to see them. Then the presents are opened. Afterwards, there is dinner (some families also have dinner before opening the presents, but that’s cruel to young children) and then the family hangs out, tries out new presents, drinks a glass of wine or beer or whatever they prefer, until it’s time to go to bed.
In recent years, the present opening has crept ever earlier into the afternoon to the point that some families are opening present directly after lunch. The justification is that the kids are impatient and that waiting too long would mess up their strictly controlled bedtimes and inconvenience the parents. Yes, I actually saw that argument made on social media by some helicopter mother. Now I’m not a fan of torturing kids by making them wait forever to open their presents, but kids can handle some waiting and opening presents before it’s dark is way too early IMO. Besides, keeping the kids occupied and out of the way until it’s time to open presents is the reason why Christmas TV specials are broadcast in the afternoon and also why the first church service of the day (usually around three PM in our church) is child-friendly with a nativity play put on by older kids, etc… Honestly, if I had impatient kids at home, I’d send them to the child-friendly Christmas service with a parent, grandparent or other appropriate adult, because it is a lovely experience, and IMO children should at least know why they’re celebrating Christmas.
However, since I was all alone, I was not beholden to anybody else’s schedule. I set my alarm for late afternoon to have my cookies and coffee, but since I still felt woozy and not well, I snoozed for another half hour or so. When I finally did get up around six PM, the first thing I did was light everything that could be lit up – from the tree via illuminated decroations to all those festive votive candle holders. Unfortunately, it turned out that several batteries were empty, so I had to replace them. One of my illuminated holiday houses remained dark, because it uses a type of button batteries I don’t have at home. By the time, everything was lit, it was too late for cookies and coffee, I decided to skip straight to herring salad and baguette. I thought what I bought was onion baguette, but it turned out to be chili baguette, which is actually much tastier.
Regarding holiday food, every family has their own tradition, but there are certain patterns. Many families have roast goose on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve, though we never did. Some have roast carp, though again we never did. Fondue or raclette are popular for Christmas Eve because of the communal aspect and we have had both.
And then there is the weird tradition, supposedly observed by lots of families throughout Germany, to serve potato salad and sausages for dinner on Christmas Eve. Now we never had this and indeed, I would probably have rioted, if served potato salad and sausages on Christmas Eve, because I dislike both. Nor did I ever know anybody else who had potato salad and sausages on Christmas Eve, though it’s supposedly the most popular holiday meal in Germany. And indeed, when I bought the last few groceries on Christmas Eve morning, I saw tubs of ready-made potato salad stacked at the front of the store – for those folks who not only feel the need to eat that stuff, but also can’t be arsed to make it themselves.
And indeed, it seems that the noxious potato salad and sausages for Christmas Eve is dying off, because I saw lots of posts on social media where people basically went, “Who eats this stuff for the most important holiday of the year? That’s maybe appropriate for a kids’ birthday party, but not for Christmas.”
That said, my Mom claimed that her family had potato salad and sausages, when she was a kid. Which may well be true, though they certainly weren’t eating that stuff during my lifetime. As a result, I always assumed that potato salad and sausages for Christmas Eve was a post-WWII poverty meal, which just stuck around in some families.
Meanwhile, the potato salad and sausage defenders claim that the reason for the tradition is that the advent period was traditionally a time of fasting and that’s why there is only a plain and simple meal on Christmas Eve. It’s also supposed to remind you of the humble circumstances under which Jesus was born. Now I do know that the advent period used to be a time of fasting – that’s also why the purple altar cloth is used during both Lent and Advent – though not even the most devout Christian fasts during advent these days. However, the whole “We eat potato salad and sausage on Christmas Eve because of fasting” explanation is nonsense.
For starters, fasting usually involves eating no meat and sausages contain meat. Sometimes, so does the potato salad. Mary and Joseph also certainly weren’t eating potato salad and sausages in the manger in Bethlehem. Nor were devout medieval peasants eating potato salad and sausages. Indeed, potato cultivation didn’t even start in earnest in what is now Germany until the eighteenth century, heavily promoted by Friedrich II of Prussia. Which is why as a kid who hated potatoes (I still don’t like them and hardly ever eat them) I swore I would pee on Friedrich’s grave at Sanssouci Palace near Potsdam for foisting potatoes on Germany. I have never done this BTW, partly because I still haven’t been to Sanssouci Palace and partly because I forgave Friedrich II for the foisting potatoes on Germany, once I learned that he was gay and very much in love with his tutor Hans Hermann von Katte and wanted to elope with him. They were recaptured, Friedrich was locked up and Katte executed before young Friedrich’s eyes. Every kid in Germany knows the story about how Friedrich II brought the potato to Germany (which isn’t even entirely true – he promoted the cultivation of potatoes, but did not introduce them), but I at least didn’t learn that he was gay and about his tragic romance until I was an adult and my parents had never heard about it at all. And even today, many history books, documentaries, etc… still beat about the bush and call Katte Friedrich’s close friend. Because the architect of Prussian military power, the man who had Sanssouci Palace, the Brandenburg Gate and many other important buildings in Potsdam and Berlin built, the great patron of arts, music, literature and philosophy and the man who promoted the cultivation of potatoes can’t possibly have been gay.
That said, the kind of potato salad and sausages some families enjoy at Christmas is very much a twentieth century dish, maybe late nineteenth century. And even if fasting traditions played a role, the reason people started having potato salad and sausages for Christmas is because it’s fairly cheap, you can make a lot of it and it’s easy to premake days before. Coincidentally, my family’s tradition of having herring salad for Christmas is likely older than the potato salad tradition and probably really linked to fasting traditions, since fish is a fasting meal (yes, the salad also contains pork, but you neither see it nor taste it, unless you know it’s there) and the dark pink colour evokes the colour of the purple altar cloth. As for how old the recipe is, it was my grandmother’s and she was born in 1903. And I’m pretty sure that she did not develop the recipe from scratch either, but got it from someone else. I need to check the vintage cookbooks by nineteenth century Bremen educators Betty Gleim and Berhardine Schulze-Schmidt to see if they have a similar recipe.
Red herring salad. The bright pink colour comes mainly from beetroot.
Anyway, here is the red herring salad. I shared the full “feed a regiment” recipe here some time ago. I’m not a fan of keeping family recipes secret anyway and since I’m the last person in my family who’s still making this salad, I’d rather not have the recipe get lost.
That said, I drastically cut down on the volume of many ingredients, because otherwise I’d be eating herring salad until February (though it doesn’t keep that long). I also got lucky and found celeriac roots chopped into halves and quarters at the grocery store, since the amount of celeriac is the hardest reduce, because celeriac roots are big. But a quarter root was just about right.
After dinner, I retreated to the living room and settled down on the sofa. I read the nativity story from the Gospel of Luke to the assembled Masters of the Universe figures and other toys, one tradition I kept from when my parents were still alive. Then I popped We Wish You a Merry Christmas by the Ray Conniff Singers into the CD player, which was the only good Christmas album we had when I was a kid, brought back from the US in 1978. Everything else were traditional German Christmas songs, which sound more like dirges. I made myself a mug of mulled wine and got some chocolates and enjoyed the tree and the lights, while grooving with the Ray Conniff Singers.
And here is this year’s tree, photographed with and without the flash:
As I’ve said before, our Christmas tree is a legacy tree. The oldest ornaments were bought by my parents as newlyweds. They would have celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary this year, so these ornaments were sixty years old by now. Over the years, more ornaments were added, purchased by my parents or later by me, handmade by me as well as ornaments which came to us as gifts, mostly from my Aunt Gisela. Indeed, a few years ago, I realised that I wasn’t decorating my tree or even my parents’ tree, but Aunt Gisela’s.
As a result, I started buying a few selected ornaments every year, so the tree will reflect the person I am now more than Aunt Gisela of all people.
So let’s have a few tree close-ups:
A closer look at the top of the tree, where many of the oldest and most delicate ornaments are.
Highlights include the two beautiful wood shavings angels, some tiny angels from the 1960s, the two apples made from construction paper, which date from my parents’ first Christmas as a married couple and are sixty years old, a gold braid heart studded with red rhinestones, also nigh sixty years old, and a Santa ornament that I made from a sea shell I’d found on the beach at the age of five. This was not a kindergarten project, but entirely my own design, which I made as a surprise for my parents. The Santa hat and his hair are paper glued to the sea shell, the string is a piece of yarn. I’m amazed that this ornament survived 47 years.
This year’s tree had a double top, so here’s a side view, so you can see the golden tentacle treetopper I got for myself last year, since I never liked any of the many treetoppers (at least five) we had over the years.
You can also see the sixty-year-old construction paper apples, a very 1970s looking elf in a wicker swing that was a gift from – you guessed it – Aunt Gisela and the straw star and felt poinsettia studded with little baubles that my Mom got from a shop in Wildeshausen and that are also nigh sixty years old by now.
There are also several other straw stars, which are traditional crafts in Germany and still popular. Indeed, straw stars and red baubles and papier maché apples (you can see one of those at the bottom of the photo) are the quintessential German Christmas tree. Indeed, the official Christmas tree that’s always in the background of the Christmas speech of the German president has straw stars, red baubles and real candles. It looks the same every single year going back to the 1990s at least (probably longer, but the earliest Christmas addresses I could find online were from the 1990s) and it’s frankly embarassing, considering Germany has a tradition of manufacturing Christmas ornaments that are much nicer such as glass baubles from Thuringia or woodcrafts from the Erzgebirge mountains. Indeed, there have been years where I watched the president drone on in horrified fascination, while wondering whether this would be the year that the candles would set the tree, the president and Bellevue Palace on fire.
Indeed, compared to King Charles’ Christmas address and those of his mother before him, the Christmas address of the German president is just embarassing in the old-fashioned way it’s directed and cut. King Charles has Christmas carols (including the Carol of the Bells sung by a choir of Ukrainian refugees) and little snippets of the Royal Family doing charity work and visiting the Pope interspersed with his speech, while Frank Walter Steinmeier just drones on and on, while his embarassing tree flickers in the background. Christian Wulff, who was German president from 2010 to 2012, tried to modernise the Christmas address a little and invited people who’d done charity work and the like into Bellevue Palace. He even spruced up the embarassing tree with paper stars. I also seem to recall that there was music, though it’s not in the recording I found online. However, this was obviously way too modern and Wulff was forced to resign within barely two years over a nothing burger of a scandal.
If you look at Frank Walter Steinmeier’s 2025 Christmas address, you’ll notice some traditional Erzgebirge woodcrafts – a Christmas pyramid and an angel and miner set – in the background. These are new additions – at any rate I haven’t noticed them before. Coincidentally, I have half an angel and miner set, since I only have the angel which arrived in a package by my Great-Aunt Metel from East Germany sometime in the 1980s. I have no idea why she only got the angel and not the miner as well.
One thing that was very difficult to find in Germany until fairly recently are pop culture ornaments. This sort of thing is obviously much too gauche. I have seen some Disney ornaments for sale in recent years, but if you want Hallmark ornaments, you must import them yourself. So here are my pop culture ornaments:
I got the Hallmark He-Man and Skeletor for myself last year. The Tasmanian Devil is also a Hallmark ornament, which I bought in the US in the 1990s. The three Disney ornaments were handmade by a lady named Jenny, who gave them to me when I was five. Jenny lived in Florida with her husband Jack, who was the manager of a shipyard, which is how my Dad knew them. Jenny had a full set of Fiesta Ware (which I used to call Jenny pottery before I knew the proper name) and she was a crafter. She had built the most amazing dollhouse and she also made those woodcut Christmas tree ornaments and gave me three of them, which I’ve treasured ever since. I have no idea what Jack and Jenny’s surname was and whether they are still alive. They were older than my parents at the time, so I doubt it. However, I have treasured Jenny’s handmade Disney ornaments for forty-seven years now.
In fact, the best thing about having a tree full of legacy ornaments is that every ornament has its story and reminds you of where you got it or who gave it to you.
Here you can see Taz again as well as a Hallmark Grogu ornament, because Christmas has room for more than one very special child and a glittering dinosaur, which I bought this year from a shop in the Netherlands, because everything is better with glittering dinosaurs. There also are a bunch of Erzgebirge ornaments, some of them dating back to the 1970s, and a Santa ornament from – you guessed it – Aunt Gisela, which I call the Gandalf Santa, since Aunt Gisela got me so many dwaves, gnomes and Santa ornaments over the years that you can recreate the entire questing party from the Hobbit. I guess my glittering dinosaur is Smaug then. Finally, there is a Wedgewood Jasperware ornament, which I bought as a student in London in the 1990s at the Wedgewood shop on Regent Street, because I always loved Jasperware, but could only afford very small pieces (a small box, a small plate and this ornament). I should probably check eBay, since lots of people are offloading china, vases, figurines, etc… they inherited and don’t want.
Another look at Taz and the glittering dinosaur with bonus Erzgebirge train.
Finally, here is another new ornament, namely the motorbike near the bottom. This one I bought in memory of my Dad, who was a biker. There’s also a red glass motorbike ornament, which I gave to Dad while he was still alive to enjoy it, as well as “the long angel”, an angel standing on a golden ball which I got from – you guessed it – Aunt Gisela (I think it was one of the last ornaments I got from her before she fell ill), a iridescent bird which I got at a garden center in the Netherlands (I went in to buy tulip bulbs and walked out with Christmas stuff) and a golden star studded with red glass stones. I bought that one roughly thirty years ago, though I no longer remember where.
Have a Very Merry Hordemas!
My living room table was once again given over to the Evil Horde, mostly because the Mighty Motherboard is so big that she only fits on the living room table, so I just left her where she was, when I redecorated for Christmas and added some additional Horde members to keep her company.
Hordak may famously hate flowers, but he’s still clandestinely looking for a mistletoe, so he has an excuse to kiss Entrapta. Meanwhile, Modulok will kiss himself under the mistletoe – he has two heads after all – while secretly dreaming of the dashing Force Captain Keldor.
Other parts of my regular action figure shelves got some added holiday decorations as well.
Christmas has come to Eternia.
Of course, the Playmobil nativity is back as well, this time with a few new additions. The beauty of the Playmobil nativity is of course that you can add whichever figures and characters you want. Do you think it would be cool to have mermaids, police officers, Star Trek characters or the Scooby Doo gang pay their respects to Baby Jesus? Knock yourself out.
My Playmobil nativity isn’t that off-beat, but it has grown over the years as I added more figures. The basic nativity set consists of the manger and furnishings, Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus, the angel, ox and donkey. The Three Wise Men and their camel are an add-on you can purchase separately. When I first bought the Playmobil nativity, Playmobil did not offer a shepherd (they have added one since), so I ended up buying a bunch of farmer women and children with their animals from the Playmobil farm and country line. Since they’re all women and children, I like to imagine that they are a lesbian organic farm commune who came to help out the couple with the new baby. I also have four Roman soldiers who direct the traffic, a THW helper who makes sure that the manger is structurally sound (he was a gift to my Dad), a lady knight and a bunch of Vikings with their dog as well as the monk Brother Aloysius and his pet boar (a special set made to celebrate the anniversary of Eberbach Abbey in Hesse) and Martin Luther, another special figure made to celebrate 500 years of Reformation. I initially bought the Martin Luther figure to add him to my Halloween display for the “Actually, it’s Reformation Day” people, but he fits in with the nativity as well.
Finally, there is the Mouse King, this year’s holiday figure from the Figura Obscura line by Four Horsemen Studios. For more about that figure and why I ordered him pretty much as soon as I saw him announced, see my review at File 770.
The Mouse King in his natural realm, attempting to conquer the Christmas tree and steal all the presents. Also note that the quilted tablecloth actually has nutcrackers as part of the design.
Talking of presents, I did get a few genuine presents on Boxing Day (more on that later), but mostly I just declared things which I bought for myself in the run-up to the holidays presents.
Christmas presents and cards.
Top row from the left: Goodie bag with food items from my cousin’s daughter Anna and her family, a bag of roasted almonds from my cousin’s son Ole and his girlfriend and a bottle of wine from my cousin Magnus and his wife Marly. Middle row: Brigands and Breadknives by Travis Baldree, Masters of the Universe Classics Dragon Blaster Skeletor, Super 7 Movie Conan, Valeria, Thulsa Doom and Subotai, (lying on Valeria’s packaging) and a Toyplosion Slime mug. Bottom row: The Sinister Booksellers of Bath by Garth Nix, Mythic Legions Lord Draguul, Masters of the Universe New Eternia Mosquitor, Origins Dragstor, Vintage Collection Teela, Mythic Legions Sir Enoch, a silver and garnet necklace (lying on Sir Enoch’s packaging) and The Place Where They Buried Your Heart by Christina Henry. Plus a bunch of holiday cards. The two identical cards are from my car garage who still have my Dad in their customer files and thus sent him a card as well.
The various Masters of the Universe figures just happened to come out just before Christmas and indeed, Dragstor arrived on Christmas Eve. Regarding the Conan movie figures, I initially only wanted to buy Valerie and Conan. However, Super 7 offered all four figures as a set at a reduced price and taking shipping, etc… into account, buying only two figures would have been much more expensive for figure than ordering all four. I decided that if I didn’t like Thulsa Doom or Subotai, I would just sell them. However, these are great figures and they fit in perfectly with Masters of the Universe Classics, because they use the same body.
Mythic Legions is a fantasy toyline from Four Horsemen Studios, the same company which also made my Krampus, Father Christmas and Mouse King. These figures are amazing, though a little smaller than Masters of the Universe Classics and Masterverse. I initially bought a bunch of skeleton warriors – you can see them in my Halloween post – but I also bought two knights, a heroic paladin and an evil lady knight, who promptly started an entirely inappropriate affair on my shelf. So I got an older, more grizzled knight to keep my paladin on the straight and narrow. As for Lord Draguul, he is a vampiric character and a tribute to Hordak, so I had to get him.
Christmas Day
On Christmas Day, we have always had sailor’s curry for as long as I can remember. Which suits me just fine, because it is my favourite childhood dish. For an explanation of what the dish is and where it comes from, see this post.
Now sailor’s curry is best when prepared in advance. It doesn’t taste as good when served right after cooking. So in times past, I cooked the curry ahead of time – sometimes even on Christmas Eve – and then only chopped up the side dishes and cooked the rice Christmas Day itself.
However, this Christmas Eve I found myself tired with no curry cooked, so I thought, “Screw this! I’ll go to bed now and get up early tomorrow morning to make the curry. Then I’ll let it rest for a few hours and heat it up again for lunch.”
So that’s what I did. I got up around six AM on Christmas Day and cooked the curry. While the curry was simmering, I also prepared some of the side dishes. By the time I switched off the stove, I noticed light in the windows of my neighbour Vladimir (the one who carried my Christmas tree into the house and also helps me with other stuff around the house and garden). So I packed up my gifts for Vladimir and his family – they have three kids, two teenagers and a two-year-old – and walked over to wish them a Merry Christmas and hand over my gifts. Vladimir and his wife Marina were just having breakfast, while two-year-old Daniel was watching cartoons. They asked me in and offered me a cup of tea.
After about an hour, I went back to my house, check my e-mails and then I heated up the curry again, cooked the rice and prepared the rest of the side dishes, since some of them are best made just before serving.
Normally, I put everything – the tray with the side dishes, the pot with the rice and the big pressure cooker with the curry – on the dining room table. However, this takes up a lot of space and would have required removing everything else from the dining room table. So I just left the pots with the curry and the rice on stove and went into the kitchen to fill my plate. After all, it was just me, so who cares that not everything is on the table. Besides, the curry and the rice actually kept warm much better on the stove.
The sailor’s curry simmering on the stove..
The sailor’s curry and basmati rice on the stove.
The side dishes. Clockwise from the left: Chopped banana, chopped pickled beetroot, atjar tjampoer (Dutch Indonesian pickled salad), chopped hardboiled egg, chopped red onion, seroendeng (Dutch Indonesian coconut flakes, peanuts and spices), Indian lime pickle, mango chutney and chopped gherkins.
Both Atjar Tjampoer and Seroendeng are nigh impossible to find in Germany, so I got some in the Netherlands. Since German sailor’s curry is strongly influenced by the Dutch Indonesian Rijstafel, these two additions make sense. Besides, the Seroendeng adds a lovely crunch to the dish.
And here is a sailor’s curry, rice and side dishes all mixed up on the plate. Looks like a mess, but tastes amazing.
I have cut down the amount of meat for the curry, but it is enough for two days. And while I tried to make sure only to make as much of the side dishes as I need, some would also last for the following or rather the day after, since I already had an invitation for Boxing Day,
For dinner on Christmas Day, I had more herring salad as well as the rest of the chili baguette. Afterwards, I rewatched He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special to celebrate the holiday and went to bed relatively early, because I had a long day ahead on Boxing Day.
Boxing Day
On Boxing Day, I got up and filled two old jam jars full of herring salad. I’d told my cousin that it was too late to get presents for everybody, but she said that was fine. I’d promised to bring cookies and I also decided to bring some herring salad, since it is their family recipe, too, and I recall that my Aunt Marlene used to make it back in the day. So I assumed they’d be happy to eat it again. That might have been a slight miscalculation on my part.
As for the cookies, I prepared a classic Bunter Teller (colourful plate), a German holiday tradition of filling a plate with cookies, sweets, nuts, tangerines and other seasonal. I skipped the nuts and tangerines, but I dug into my extensive collection of holiday cookies and sweets.
My colourful holiday platter
We have, roughly clockwise from the top, spekulatius, vanilla kipferl, pecan cookies, nut crescents, brown cookies, orange cookies, gingerbread triangles, cinnamon stars, mendiants (chocolate pieces with nuts and fruit) and marzipan potatoes. The plate itself as a metal holiday plate that I got years ago. At the time, it was filled with chocolate, but I kept the metal plate, because it won’t shatter during transport and looks nicer than a paper plate.
I set off at about a quarter to ten. My cousin Ulrike lives in Gütersloh, a city in Eastern Westfalia, which is home to the global headquarters of the Bertelsmann Group, corporate owners of Penguin Random House and one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world, as well as Miele, manufacturer of the best household equipment. My washing machine, dishwasher and dryer are all Miele products, because they’re the best.
Gütersloh is a two hour drive and about 160 to 190 kilometers away, depending on which route I take. Cause there are three different routes. The first is the longest, but also the fastest, since it’s all Autobahn. It’s also the most boring route, because it’s all Autobahn. The other two routes use mainly Bundesstraßen – two-lane national roads (the name means Federal road) – and only change onto the Autobahn towards the end. These two routes are shorter, but somewhat slower. They’re also a lot more scenic and interesting.
On the Road Again
I had plenty of time and the weather was beautiful and clear, if cold, so I chose the most scenic of the three routes. I drove onto Bundesstraße B51 until Bassum and then changed onto Bundestraße B61. It’s a pleasant route that passes through fields, farmland and forests and the occasional village, though it bypasses most of the bigger towns along the route.
I put in the first stop at a gas station at the edge of the town of Sulingen. Now it must be noted that this was Boxing Day, i.e. a public holiday in Germany and one where almost nothing is open. Gas stations usually are open, at least some of them, but almost nothing else is. No restaurants, no bakeries, no cafés, etc… So while I would normally have had breakfast at a bakery somewhere on route, I just bought a pretzel stick at the gas station and ate it on a roadside parking lot.
But even though Boxing Day is a public holiday, there was quite a lot of traffic. Most of it was cars, since trucks are only allowed to drive on public holidays in Germany, if their cargo is particularly urgent. Though I did see a few trucks, including a laundry truck, which honestly makes me wonder how “urgent” is interpreted. Maybe whoever considers laundry trucks urgent subscribes to the stupid superstition that you’re not supposed to wash laundry between Christmas and New Year or sometimes during the entire twelve days of Christmas, lest death and dire consequences follow. Supposedly the reason is that the Wild Hunt is abroad during these nights and will get entangled in laundry hung up to dry, so you should be fine, if you have a dryer. It’s also a stupid superstition, though one that’s remarkably resilient. And yes, I have done laundry between Christmas and New Year.
As for the cars on the road, the drivers were apparently on the road for the same reason as I, to visit family or – in some cases – go on holiday. The drivers came in two flavours, both equally annoying. There were those who assumed that speed limits don’t apply on public holidays, since there’s no one out to enforce them, and so got quite angry when I did follow the speed limits. The other kind of Christmas drivers were the insecure ones who clearly had no idea where they were going and drove at 70 kilometers per hour on straight even roads where the speed limit is 100 kilometers per hour.
But in spite of some annoying drivers, I had a pleasant drive. After Sulingen, the B61 passes through fields and farmland and the occasional forest. It bypasses Kirchdorf and Uchte and crosses into Northrhine-Westfalia just before the Petershagen. Petershagen is a nice town and has a castle and many historic timbered houses. In suburb of Gernheim, there is also a historic glassworks which is now a museum. I must really visit the Gerheim Glassworks Museum sometime, since it’s only about an hour’s drive away from home.
Minden and Porta Westfalica
After Petershagen, you reach Minden, one of the bigger and more interesting cities along the way. Minden is where the river Weser and the Mittelland Canal (literally mid country canal) intersect at a famous historical aqueduct and locks. The aqueduct and the Weser locks are an engineering marvel from the early twentieth century and a popular destination for school trips.
The Weser Lock in Minden, built between 1911 and 1914. I took this photo last summer.
Another look at the Weser Lock in Minden.
“By the Power of Minden, I have the Water Power.”
The next town after Minden is Porta Westfalica, literally the Gate to Westfalia. Porta Westfalica is fascinating, because these is where the glaciers of the last ice age stopped and where you suddenly get mountains. Well, more like hills, but considering how flat North Germany is, they are mountains. The line where you suddenly get mountains jutting out of flat land runs all through Germany, but the effect is nowhere more pronounced then in Porta Westfalica, where the mountains on either side of the Weser gorge literally jut out of the land.
And because just mountains suddenly appearing seemingly out of the blue apparently wasn’t spectacular enough, the powers that were during the Second German Enmpire decided to plop a huge monument to Emperor Wilhelm I onto one of those mountains, overlooking the Weser gorge. The Second German Empire had a thing about putting monuments on mountain tops and the landscape is still littered with these attempts at nationbuilding via plopping monuments on mountain tops. In fact, you might be forgiven for assuming that Emperor Wilhelm I’s main job was standing around on mountain tops and gazing benignly into the distance.
I have driven past the Emperor Wilhelm I monument at Porta Westfalica many times with parents, but until last year, I’d never actually been up at the monument. The reason is that my Mom apparently got sick up there during a school trip and vehemently refused to ever go up there again. And during my school days, the Emperor Wilhelm I monument was no longer a destination for school trips.
So last year, I decided to drive down to Porta Westfalica and visit the old Emperor on his mountain. After all, Mom is gone, so who’s stopping me?
The Emperor Wilhelm I monument at Porta Westfalica, completed in 1896, with motorbike for scale.
Up close and personal with the Emperor.
View across the Weser gorge at Porta Westfalica with Weser bridge and TV tower
Now I know the route until Porta Westfalica very well. But after Porta Westfalica I get a bit fuzzy, so I stopped at a parking lot, ate the rest of my pretzel stick and programmed my GPS Else.
Else led me past the mountain with the Emperor Wilhelm I monument and over the bridge across the river Weser which you can see in the photo above. I was early and had some time to kill. Initially, I had thought I’d maybe drive up and pay the old Emperor visit or make my way up the mountain on the other side of the Weser gorge, the one with the TV tower, from where you’ve got a great view of the Emperor Wilhelm I monument. But even though the weather was clear on Boxing Day, the mountain tops were shrouded in mist. Not great conditions for visiting the Emperor, so I drove onwards.
The road then leads towards the spa town of Bad Oeynhausen, where Else led me onto Autobahn A2. Now there were three more examples of the Second German Empire’s attempts at nationbuilding via monuments on mountain tops along the route, namely three different Bismarck Towers. Bismarck Towers were erected all over the German Empire to honour Count Otto von Bismarck, general, chancellor and uniter of Germany. These days, several of them have been town down and many fo the remaining Bismarck Towers have fallen into disrepair. Personally, I think this is a pity, because these monuments are part of our history, even if we no longer agree with the political intent behind them. And whenever I chance to pass a Bismarck Tower and have some time on my hands, I pay it a visit, because I find them fascinating.
But though there were no less than three Bismarck Towers along the route – in Bad Salazuflen, Herford and Bielefeld – all of them would require hiking through the woods and I didn’t have that much time. So I chose a different pitstop instead, the Autobahn Church at Exter.
Autobahn Church Exter
Now I have written about the German phenomenon of Autobahn churches and chapels before here, here and here. Inspired by the roadside shrines and chapels found in Catholic parts of Germany from the Middle Ages until today, the big Christian churches started setting up chapels and churches at service stations and exits along the Autobahnen from the late 1950s on. Some of these were existing village churches which were incorporated into the Autobahn network, others were newly built. For more about Autobahn churches and chapels, see here and here.
The Autobahn Church of Exter is one of the oldest Autobahn churches in Germany, in more ways than one. It is of those Autobahn churches that started out as a village church, built in 1666, long before there was an Autobahn. When Autobahn A2 was built pretty much on the doorstep of the church in the late 1950s, the Exter village church became an Autobahn church. It was the second Autobahn church in Germany – the first is somewhere in Bavaria.
My Mom had a thing for churches and I have inherited that interest from her. I also really like Autobahn churches, because I think it’s such a wonderful idea to offer places of quiet and contemplation alongside busy Autobahnen. They are popular as well, visited by thousands of travellers, truck drivers and people who just need a moment of quiet. So whenever I pass an Autobahn church or chapel, I stop and pay it a visit, light a candle and write something in the guest book which is found in all Autobahn churches. So far I have visited five Autobahn churches and eventually I want to visit all 44 in Germany.
The Autobahn Church of Exter, built in 1666.
The Autobahn Church in Exter with historic gravestones
Tower of the Exter Autobahn Church. Note the coat of arms over the door, which says that the church was built in 1666.
This Armenian cross outside the Autobahn church in Exter was donated by a local family and is dedicated to the victims of traffic accidents. Most Autobahn churches have some kind of monument dedicated to the victims of traffic accidents. And since the A2 near Exter is considered a dangeorus accident hotspot., there sadly are more than enough people to remember.
The inside of the Exter Autobahn church was also lovely, especially since this is a historic village church. Now for many years, I had a rule never to take photos inside a church or other place of worship, because I felt it was disrepectful. Of course, harassing and disturbing worshippers is disrespectful. Climbing onto pews or even the altar to get a better picture is disrespectful. But taking a few pictures in a completely empty church? I doubt God will mind. So enjoy these photos of the interior of the Exter Autobahn Church.
Interior of the Exter Autobahn Church with the altar, a Christmas tree, a golden angel, the pulpit and a Bible verse written on the wall.
When the Exter village church became an Autobahn church in 1959, the church was refurbishedand so parts of the interior are a lot more modern than you would expct from a church built in 1666.
The Christmas tree inside the Exter Autobahn Church. Note the very traditional straw stars and red baubles. The golden angel is a baptismal fount.
The gallery of the Exter Autobahn church with woodcarvings as well as the organ. Also note the murals on the ceiling and the chandeliers.
In the parish office building next to Exter Autobahn Church, there is a public toilet, which I promptly perused. On the parking lot, I also met a lovely couple from the Ruhrgebiet who were enjoying coffee and snacks on route to visit their son in Wolfenbüttel, which is about halfway between Hannover and Magdeburg. The couple told me that they always stop at the Exter Autobahn Church to visit the church, use the toilet and just get a bit of quiet. I wished them a Merry Christmas and a good journey. Then I drove onwards myself.
I returned to the Autobahn A2 and drove past Herford and Bad Salzuflen, crossed the Teutoburg Forest and passed Bielefeld. And yes, Bielefeld exists and I actually visited it before the conspiracy theory that Bielefeld does not exist became a thing.
The next exit after Bielefeld is Gütersloh, where my cousin lives. Else directed me to her house in the suburbs. I parked my car, got the cookie platter and the herring salad and rang the bell.
A Family Christmas
The person who opened the door was not Ulrike, but her daughter Anna who lives on the first floor with her family. I was ushered into the kitchen to say hello to Ulrike, who was busy with preparations, and then into the parlour where the guests were lounging.
All in all, we were twelve people: my cousin Ulrike, her daughter Anna as well as Anna’s fiancé and three kids, Ulrike’s son Ole and his girlfriend, my cousin Magnus and his wife Marly, my Aunt Marlene and myself. There were lots of hugs and hellos, especially since it has been a while since I’ve seen many of them.
Now I’m a late baby and my parents were both late babies as well, so everybody in my family is considerably older than me (or in the case of the kids, considerably younger). My Aunt Marlene turned 94 this year and is my last surviving aunt.
We had lunch, which consisted of Krustenbraten (salted pork with a crispy crust), potato dumplings, gravy, rice with chickpeas, roasted pumpkin, broccoli and mediterranean vegetables. Several of the guests were vegan and I’m not big on meat myself and wound up sharing a slice of Krustenbraten with Ole. It tasted good as well, particularly with the gravy. Coincidentally, I have now had more pork in three days than in the entire year. Though the rice with chickpeas was actually my favourite.
For desert, there was green Jello. Now I’m allergic to Jello, so I excused myself and said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t have that.” No problem, especially since the vegan guests didn’t eat the Jello either. The Jello was supposed to be served with vanilla sauce, which was in a jar. Anna stirred the vanilla sauce before serving and suddenly a puddle of vanilla sauce formed on the table and spread rapidly, since the jar randomly decided to crack. Everybody started laughing and then mopping up the glass and vanilla sauce from the table. Unfortunately, the vanilla sauce was no longer edible, since some splinters of glass had gotten into the sauce. So it was just Jello without vanilla sauce, which persuaded at least one more person not to eat it.
After lunch, Aunt Marlene took a nap, the three children retreated to their rooms to play videogames and Ulrike and Anna cleaned up the table and kitchen. I asked if they needed help, but they said, “Nope, we’re fine.” So I joined the rest of the party for the traditional Christmas walk.
Between Ulrike’s house and Autobahn A2, there are some fields and a small patch of woodland and that’s where we walked.
Wooden structure in the woods near Gütersloh
Now I had driven through hilly terrain – the Wiehen Mountains and the Teutoburg Forest – from Porta Westfalica to Bielefeld. But the area around Gütersloh is flat, as flat as at home. But then the adjacent Münsterland is mostly flat as well all the way to Dutch border and beyond.
Getting some fresh air and movement felt good. Once we got back to the house, it was time for the gift exchange. Which was a problem, because I did not have any gifts for anybody and Ulrike had told me I didn’t need to get any. So all I had was a platter of cookies and sweets, which was reserved for the afternoon coffee, and two jars of herring salad. I had also given Anna’s three kids some money each, because money is the best gift for older kids (the youngest is nine, the other two are teenagers).
So we all gathered in the parlour, me with my two jars of herring salad, and gifts were exchanged. I offered my jar of herring salad to Aunt Marlene, because I recalled that she had made it for the holidays in the past. However, Aunt Marlene said, “That’s very nice of you, but no thank you. I never cared for herring salad very much.” Apparently, no one else did either. I guess my Uncle Heinz, who’s long gone, was the only one in that branch of the family who liked herring salad. So I really am the last person in the family to use this recipe. Which is a pity, because it is a great recipe. Anyway, one jar of my herring salad went to Anna’s fiancé Alex, who likes herring salad (and who knows, maybe he’ll like mine so much that the recipe will live on in the family after all) and the other to Ulrike.
Meanwhile, I got a bottle of wine from Magnus and Marly, some roasted almonds from Ole, a bag with olives, chocolates and two kinds of sausage from Anna and Alex and a fridge magnet from the Center of International Light Art in Unna in the Ruhrgebiet from Ulrike, who also told me it’s worth a visit, so that’s a possible destination for my next Ruhrgebiet trip. The magnet is already on my fridge, the sausage will go to my neighbours, since I don’t eat sausage and the rest of the food is already in the cellar.
Afterwards, it was time for coffee, cookies and cake. Magnus and Marly had made vegan and gluten free brownies and cheesecake and of course there was still my platter of cookies and sweets. The cookies and sweets were popular, too, though there was one unexpected problem. Because Ulrike’s son Ole had loaded his plate with cookies. He happened to sit opposite from me, so I told them what the cookies were, while he munched on them. “That’s a pecan cookie,” I said and suddenly, Ole jumped up and hurried to the bathroom. Turns out he’s heavily allergic to pecan nuts, which I didn’t know or I wouldn’t have brought anything with pecans. Anyway, nothing bad happened beyond a half eaten cookie. I also warned him to be careful with the white chocolate mendiants, because I ran out of pistaccios halfway through making them and used pecans for the rest. However, the mendiant he had on his plate was one of the batch with pistacchios.
The Road Home
I left Ulrike’s at about half past six PM. It was completely dark outside, since the sun had set more than two hours before. And I still had a two hour drive ahead of me.
This time around, I opted to use the all-Autobahn route. Since it was dark, I couldn’t see the nicer scenery anyway and the Autobahn is safer than unfamiliar country roads in the dark. So I told my GPS Else to take me home.
But before I got to the Autobahn, the route took me through Gütersloh and across unfamiliar country roads in the dark. For while Autobahn A2 passes within a kilometer or of Ulrike’s house, taking it would have required a detour, so Else sent me down unfamiliar country roads.
While I was driving, I looked at the dashboard clock and realised that it would be almost nine PM until I made it home. So I should probably have dinner somewhere on route. Of course, it was still Boxing Day, when almost everything is closed, including restaurants. So I pulled my car into the parking lot of a shuttered store and checked whether the Jägerheim restaurant at Autohof Lohne-Dinklage was open, since that’s a nice place to stop for coffee or dinner. Alas, it was closed.
So I checked Google Maps for restaurants in the area where I was, somewhere west of Bielefeld. Because finding someplace to eat here would be better than having to leave the Autobahn later on. Google Maps told me that there was a village called Brockhagen nearby, which had two restaurants. The first restaurant was closed for the holidays, but the second, a place called Rhodos Grill, was open and actually quite busy, mostly with people getting take-out.
Rhodos Grill is your typical Greek take-out place. You can get all sorts of meat-heavy Greek dishes, a few salads, sandwiches and pizza. I ordered a small vegetarian pizza and some water. Rhodos Grill is not the kind of place where I normally would have stopped, but the pizza was tasty and the service friendly. And the next time I am in the region, I may well stop here again. Also note that pretty much every person I met working at the gas stations, service stations and restaurants that were open Boxing Day was Muslim.
Vegetarian pizza, courtesy of Rhodos Grill in Brockhagen
While I was eating my pizza, the waiter asked if I wanted a complimentary shot of Ouzo. I said, “That’s very kind, but no thank you. I still have to drive to Bremen.”
My pizza pit-stop took about half an hour, then I was back on the road again, headed home. At the town of Halle in Westfalia (to distinguish it from the better known Halle on Saale), I drove onto Autobahn A33. I drove past the towns of Dissen and Bad Rothenfelde and crossed the Teutoburg Forest once more, headed towards Osnabrück.
If I had continued on Autobahn A33 until it ends in Belm near Osnabrück, I could have followed Bundesstraße B51 home. And yes, I have driven this route before several times, but not in the dark.
And so Else directed me onto Autobahn A30, where I passed Osnabrück, and then onto my old friend Autobahn A1 at the junction Osnabrück-Lotte. By now I was beginning to feel a little tired again, since driving in the dark is exhausting. Of course, pretty much everything is closed on Boxing Day, but Autobahn service stations are usually open or at least the gas station part is.
So I pulled onto service station Dammer Berge with its iconic bridge restaurant, which was glowing like a friendly beacon in the night. So they were still open or at least parts of the restaurant were. Because the actual restaurant, but the Burger King and the coffee counter were still open. I asked the man behind the coffee counter, if I could still have a coffee, since it looked as if he was cleaning up. He told me that the coffeemaker was in the middle of its cleaning cycle, which would take five minutes or so. But afterwards I could have a coffee. I replied, “Five minutes really isn’t much of a problem at this point. I’ll wait.”
So I found a table and watched the traffic on the Autobahn pass by underneath. Some five minutes later, I did get my coffee and a big chocolate chip cookie. I also apologised to the barista that he would have to run the cleaning cycle again. He said, “That’s okay. In theory, we’re open until ten PM.”
Refreshed by my pitstop at Dammer Berge, I set off towards home again. Earlier that day, there had been yet another accident at the end of the traffic jam before the construction work at the Weser Bridge in Bremen (more than two hundred accidents happened here this year with two people killed and 56 injured) and later that same night, there was a mass accident on the A1 between junction Ahlhorner Heide and exit Wildeshausen West, but when I drove along the A1, it was actually clear for once.
Past Wildeshausen, I started getting tired again. I hoped I could continue onwards – after all it was only thirty kilometers or so – but I was getting dangerously tired, so I pulled into the rest area Delmetal, only about eighteen kilometers from home. I was planned to have a piece of chocolate, drink some water and maybe close my eyes for ten minutes or so, but I must have fallen asleep – on an Autobahn parking lot eighteen kilometers from home on Boxing Day – and woke with a start half an hour later.
I made it home at half past ten in the evening and went straight to bed. And that was my Christmas.
The 2025 Darth Vader Parenthood Award and Jonathan and Martha Kent Fiction Parent fo the Year posts are coming, though one or both of them may slip into the New Year, since I’m not sure I can get both finished tonight.
http://corabuhlert.com/2025/12/31/christmas-2025/
https://corabuhlert.com/?p=55294
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Lesbians In Space: The Sapphics Strike Back by J S Fields
Unless I missed one or two.
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Happy New Year, Y’all! It’s sharing time!
, I have a new and super powered version of this spreadsheet modified and shared by Elizabeth, and 
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Hello! It’s our last Links of 2025! Can you believe it?
People Change by Vivek Shraya
