Feeling left out of the cold. Create a snowflake. Merry Christmas everyone! The snow melted yesterday after the minus temps let up two days ago. If you are jonesing for winter white, you can make your own snowflake here.

We’re at the G. Family and enjoying being swept up by all the festivities. Tomorrow is Oma’s traditional Cow tongue and I helped cut it up this year. Minus Lydia, the whole immediate fam will be together tomorrow and then we leave for Brussels.

I’ve spent most of my time working on family videos of the nephew Friedrich, previous weddings, and a video of our apartment for Oma. Trying to find a codec or video format that can be transfer to my cameras or playing a video per disc thru the DVD players has been one dizzy and frustrating mess. After a head full of dead end ideas, I gave up and ended up showing my work on the laptop. Not optimal for people not used to a computer screen, but what can you do when ancient electronic equipment (2 yro) and advanced video editing software don’t mix? I’m still baffled that I spent so much effort on this project and it didn’t result the way I planned.

But anyway. I’m now inducted to the group of watch carriers. Alex gave me two watches this year for Christmas. I’m sporting an everyday watch driven with quartz clockwork and for special occasions, I have a similar watch but with mechanical clockwork. Both are very beautiful and actually fit my small wrists.

..if you live in Germany and there isn’t any snow on the ground already, you’re likely not to see any snow on the Winter Solstice or Christmas morning, so says the weatherman.

Darn! I was really hoping for a little white before the end of the year. These minus temperatures are a bit dull without some sparkling ice crystals. By the way, the Winter Solstice happens in Germany (Northern Hemisphere) on December 22, 2007 at 7:08 AM. I look forward to the Solstice every year because from this day on, the days get longer and the chance of sunshine increases. That is one the best presents I can count on.

But I have a confession. I haven’t sent any Christmas cards and I don’t plan on it this year. Ach, the guilt! Instead there will be a mass of ones and zeros sent across fiber optic channels (or my favorite: “a series of tubes"). In other words: an e-mail message. If I had to do some green engineering, I wonder if I’d save the planet CO2 by foregoing snail mail this holiday season or the amount of energy used to read my message, own a computer, manufacture a computer.. um nevermind. How do you expats deal with a Euro per postcard for just shipping?

thankful that I can remember what a Florida sunset is like in WinterHappy Thanksgiving Everyone! This Saturday in Regensburg, Alex and I are welcomed to a Thanksgiving dinner at Christina’s for one of my favorite past times: a potluck and lots of hungry people. Otherwise, the thing about living in Germany during one of the major U.S. holidays is that I could just passively forget about it. Yes, that seems sort of odd and sad in a way. Yet for me this holiday was always laced with decisions: who to spend time with, with whom you can’t, who to avoid because so-and-so said so, and make sure you don’t say this or that. One Thanksgiving follows another, and before the same decisions arise, I keep hoping that one day all those “with whom’s” will remember why we even have this holiday. Sometimes I even need to remind myself.

On this year’s U.S. Thanksgiving, some of you maybe visiting your favorite restaurant, giving thanks that you don’t have to cook or argue who has to clean. Maybe today, you’ll be extra thankful to throw your feet up and turn on the boob tube to enjoy the broadway shows featured in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or rough up your sofa neighbor during the Lions vs. Green Bay Packers game. Maybe you are one of the lucky participating in this year’s Thanksgiving pilgrimage and spending precious time in a car, plane, or airport. Or just maybe, you are already where you want to be, getting ready to enjoy a traditional turkey dinner with family and making the effort to know your future son/daughter-in-law.

Where ever you are, whether it be Plymouth, Massachusetts, Berkeley Plantation, Virginia or Saint Augustine, Florida, and whatever you’ll be doing today, try to step back in time and remember what this day should mean as if you were learning about Thanksgiving in kindergarten for the first time. It is a time to appreciate the importance of sharing, a time to strengthen a sense of community, a time of reflection about what we’re grateful for in our lives and others’ lives, a time to celebrate family. Basically. It’s a time to be thankful.

To all those who have touched my life, I am truly thankful and know that you are in my heart. Now, be well and eat plenty!