New Years Eve German Style

We were fortunate to get to spend New Years Eve with our friends.  We drove down the night before  and had a delicious traditional meal of what looked like giant meat ravolis.  Greg kept calling them that just to make them laugh.

The real name (besides German ravioli) is Maultasche and here is a picture of what they look like.  I had to borrow the picture from Wikipedia as I was too busy enjoying them to remember to take a picture!  They serve them in a broth with lots of extra onions.  They are filled with meat and spinach and were really wonderful.



During the day on New Years Eve we walked around the town of Reutlingen, we arrived around lunch time and the place was hopping, but by about one pm all the shops started closing..it was very funny!  I wasn't sure why the shops needed to close...plenty of time before midnight?

Here are a few photos of the beautiful buildings downtown.

It has a very cool skatepark and Charlie was happy to borrow a scooter!

We aren't at Epcot...just strolling through a regular old German town!

Our friend's daughter takes music lessons in this cool building!

We got wonderful sausages from the stand.    While we ate them Greg told us his made up stories about the statue that was right by us in the square...

Here is the statue...

I liked this cool house, it had the river on both sides...probably a bit cold in the winter!

Back at our friends they awaited the arrival of two more families to also come for NYE...twenty in total and we were all sleeping over-quite the party house!   At dinner we helped set everything out for a traditional meal of raclette. However, before we could eat there is this tv show that Germans watch every NYE.  We all sat down to watch it...it is a 20 min comedy sketch from the BBC that plays on repeat all NYE in Germany.  It is called Dinner for One and its in English...I still can't quite figure out why it is a NYE tradition or why they love it so much...but here is a link in case you want to see it for yourself!  Dinner for One YouTube  (it also has an introduction in German, but I don't know what exactly they say)  Our friends watched it as children with their parents and now they watch it with their own kids and laugh together.

They told us that another of their NYE traditions is to shoot off fireworks.  We are no strangers to fireworks...as some of our fellow Stark Ave residents can attest to, but we completely underestimated how crazy they are about fireworks.  When people in Massachusetts or New Hampshire shoot off fireworks there are a few houses that are known to go all out, but that is about it.  This town in Germany..it was every house going all out and people out in the town fields lighting off everything you could imagine...everywhere you looked all you saw was fireworks.

Greg equated it to a movie called the Purge.  I guess the context of the movie is that for 12 hours all rules go away and you can do whatever you want.  This is what it felt like to be in law abiding, rule following Germany on NYE and seeing them all losing their minds over shooting off fireworks!   Our friend Katrin said everyone would be out cleaning up all the mess in the morning and sure enough, the next day, we saw people out with brooms in the cleaning up all the debris!

Charlie loved helping to shoot off as many fireworks as possible!  We were glad our dog stayed home in Belgium as she is not a fan of fireworks.

A final tradition they did that evening was to make & serve a flaming rum punch.  The German name is Feuerzanenbowle.  They have the coolest little holder for the giant sugar cone, and they drizzle it with rum, cook red wine and then they light the whole thing on fire.

I had to take this photo from Google Images as mine came out very blurry.  The giant sugar cone was so cool and it burned for several minutes. They turned the light off in the room and all we could see was the blue flame.   The wine/rum and hot sugar was delicious all together!

My only regret is that I did not take a photo of our giant group all together! (but I was fighting a cold and not at the top of my game).  However, it was a New Years Eve we will always remember and we are very happy to have such cool friends willing to show us all of their traditions!  Thank you Zurn family!

A Beautiful Christmas with no front teeth!

We miss American decorations with crazy lights everywhere.  They just don't do that here like they do at home!

However, we learned that in the Netherlands they decorate their big front windows with gorgeous, natural displays.  When we were there on Christmas Eve I got to take some pictures.  I'd really like to go through Dutch towns and put together a book of all my favorites!  This is just a sample from one tiny village, I can only imagine if I could go through all the little towns what I could find!!

Here are just a few....

I really need a better camera to capture it at night & through the glass!  It was so pretty, the photo doesn't do it justice!

I love this door I saw it last year and thought it was amazing too!

On the town light poles...each one had one!  This means Happy Holidays in Dutch.

We had an excellent Christmas..here are a few highlights...

First Greg's artistic photo of Katie finding presents under the tree!

Kelly gets a new chubby unicorn to love!

Charlie with his new pogo stick...

Katie put on a highly entertaining pogo sticking show for us while we ate breakfast!

Charlie bought Kelly the greatest present that they both love...a set of tiny hands...apparently from a SNL skit that they are fans of! 

 Our new Marine, Andrew joined us for a laser tag outing..you might wonder who got the high score of our family...me of course!!

Finally, while Charlie got many things from Santa he didn't get what he needed most...but they are one the way!

We hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas too!  

Christmas Eve- A Very Special Mass in a Cave

It's nice to have friends in high places, our friends the Baratas live near us in the Netherlands and Dave is the Captain of the Coast Guard Unit there.  Last year they got to attend a very special event, a Christmas Eve Mass in a cave in Maastricht, and this year Dave brought us to the cave mass as his guests.

We went down on the 23rd and went to the Baratas regular church.  We managed to get everyone to take a joint photo afterward.

It is a very small congregation and the Baratas keep the whole church running!  It was fun to see them all in action. Dave was the lector, Caroline played the piano, Annie and Barb both sang in the choir and James kept the Hughes kids smiling during the service!

We spent Christmas Eve morning relaxing, eating a wonderful brunch and drinking endless cups of coffee.  Charlie was delighted that for the mass in the caves you had to be 12 years old, so he settled in for a nice afternoon of hanging out with the Barata kids.

What is this mass in a cave we were headed for?  The Baratas had gone last year and described it t but its hard to picture what it would be like and to understand what it was all about. 
Here is a nice description from a blog post on this WW2 site:
http://wwiiresearchandwritingcenter.com/wwii-the-schark-cave-in-maastricht-the-netherlands/

"Every year the Foundation of the Commemoration of the American Christmas Celebration 1944 ( abbr. SHAK1944) organizes a Christmas Eve Mass to commemorate those brave boys who fought for the Liberty of Europe. Every year about 200 American soldiers attend this Service, together with their superiors, the American Ambassador or his representative,  the King’s Commissioner of the province of Limburg, the Mayor of Maastricht  and some other people."                                                                                                 note: (other people=lucky Hughes family)

Here is a great "scene setter" as to what Christmas Eve 1944 was like in Maastricht, Netherlands...(also from the same website)

WWII- The Schark Cave in Maastricht, The Netherlands

This is a guest post written by Jons van Dooren

Maastricht, the most southern city of the Netherlands, was liberated on the 13th and 14th of September 1944. The Ninth Army established its headquarters in Maastricht and stayed there for about five months.

About 800 American soldiers were in Maastricht and surroundings, in part preparing for Germany. They were also protecting the area and Antwerp harbor (all the American supplies were there)  from V1’s and V2’s, launched from Germany.

127th AAA and 131st AAA  Gun battalion had their gun-pits in Maastricht and in the neighborhood. It was their responsibility to  protect the whole area from attacks by planes and bombs. The soldiers belonging to these units were the ones who took down enemy planes and the so called Buzz-bombs. In many cases they succeeded as reports show and Antwerp harbour was “safe”.

In the meantime the coldest winter of the 20th century arrived and the soldiers had to do their duty under extreme circumstances. In the days around Christmas it was minus 32F, extremely cold, and some had to sleep in their tents. An American chaplain, Father Dobrzynski, together with some Brothers of the Immaculate Conception of Maastricht, thought about how to give the boys a kind of Christmas Feeling in these days. They knew of a cave, the Schark cave, which was very safe, and where a Mass could be held on Christmas Eve.

The cave was prepared. Sal Barravecchia, one of the soldiers, created a beautiful mural in which he showed how Freedom was guarded from all sides. About 260 American soldiers attended Mass. After Mass they had coffee and donuts. Most of the soldiers were staying Maastricht, and some came from the Ardennes, where the fighting in the Battle of the Bulge was raging on. They were taken to Maastricht by their trucks.

After Mass they all wrote their names on the wall with charcoal.  This wall is still preserved.

The website itself shows some pictures of the Christmas Eve Mass in 1944, taken by American soldiers.  (this website is run by the organization holds the mass annually)

We drove to Maastricht and arrived early for a reception where we ate wonderful pie and got to meet some of the VIP's.  We then headed out for the cave.  It wasn't a high mountain that were were heading into, really more like a regular hillside.

 

About to head in.

We went down this decorated passageway after the service for hot cocoa and doughnuts.  Back in 44 they also served doughnuts and cocoa to the soldiers after the mass.  Katie was happy they also kept this tradition alive!

One of the first paintings we passed.

Drawings filled the walls.

Even statues were carved and displayed.

I didn't expect all the carvings and drawings. Apparently the soldiers in 1944 were also impressed by what they saw when they came for mass.  At the end they closed by reading a letter that one soldier sent to his mother.  He wrote about the carvings and drawings on the cave walls.  

I found the reading of the letter the most moving part of the whole experience. To hear it in the soldiers own words was just so incredible.  Here is a link to the letter:

Letter from a soldier to his mother describing the mass

The color guard waiting to begin.

They called representatives up from the different services there and had them light a candle to honor some of the men.  Here is the Coastie that was lighting a bunch of them.

A carved altar, not the one used for the ceremony.

Altar used for the mass.

Names signed on the wall by those who attended the mass.

Real photo of the men signing...from the program.

Another shot of the altar.

A group of Dutch soldiers also taking photos to remember their trip.

Looks like it might be snowing but its really just the dust in the cave.

A view of the area from our car before we left.  We parked the car in a field and walked into the cave.

It's tough to wrap up this post as there are so many thoughts swirling around in my head after this event! First we want to thank the Barata's for including us, and the SHAK1944 Association that keeps the tradition alive each year.  We feel so fortunate to have gotten to attend.

If you want to be awed, I encourage you to read some of the letters on the SHAK1944 website that are written by the Dutch people.  Their letters convey their sincere appreciation for the brave American soldiers who left home and family to come and free Europe. 

As Americans visiting 74 years later, we are still so impressed and inspired by the brave soldiers who gathered in the cave to share some fellowship before they headed out to an uncertain fate.  We are grateful for their efforts that made the world a better place for all of us!