Christmas in Germany

Christmas in Germany is great! You know why? Because it is one of the solemn celebration that I  have experienced.  I usually heard that Christmas is a very stressful season of the year. Well, not for me. I think it all depends on you how you organize your Christmas shopping and celebration. Having only a few members of my family, it is okay celebrating Christmas without a hassle.

ADVENT TIME

Christmas in Germany starts on the 1st Advent. This 1st Advent is the 4th Sunday before the Christmas  Eve and it usually falls on the last Sunday of November. Before the 1st Advent , most Germans have cleaned and  decorated their windows and inside their houses. They have started buying what is on their shopping lists like buying gifts  and ingredients for baking cookies and other German goodies. They make gingerbread houses too with their kids. Either they make this from a gingerbread house kit they have bought in a package from a supermarket or they will bake the gingerbread building by themselves. Of course there are ready made gingerbread houses sold in the German bakeries. The choice is ours.

CHRISTMAS BAKING

Yes, Germans are fond of baking their own cookies if they have time at home. They bake with their children and have already the spirit of Christmas. Baking with their children is a good opportunity to bond with their  kids and then they would spend the time eating their vanilla cookies, Spekulatius, Lebkuchen in the living room with the 1st Advent candle of the Advent wreath lighted.

There are still  a few days before the Christmas Eve. Enjoy preparing for this fun season and enjoy your Advents first. Thanks for reading.

Here are some Christmas links for you to check:

1. How to make gingerbread houses 

2. German Christmas Pyramid

3. My Christmas in Germany

4. Christmas with kids

5. DIY Magazine Christmas Tree

  Copyright 2016 by Thelma Alberts, All Rights Reserved

Happy Mother´s Day!

These flowers are dedicated to my late mother.

Happy Mother´s day to all my online friends everywhere in this world. I don´t know if all the countries have the same date of Mother´s Day like what we have here in Germany. We have this day on every second Sunday of May every year.

We are very lucky as this day of the year, the sun is so bright and it is 26°C where I am in North Rhine Westphalia. It´s time to have this beautiful weather as winter was so long and too cold for me to enjoy.

Here´s a poem I am dedicating to my beloved late mother. I specially made this today for her. Remembering her when she was still alive.

HAPPY MOTHER´S DAY NAY!

Dear Nanay,
I wish you were here
Celebrating this day
In May.

I wish I could spend this day with you
Laughing with you 
Joking about everything
That come in our way.

I wish I could spend not only this day
But the days and months
When I am in your garden
Which is now my garden.

We could have talk a lot
About what kind of herbs are good
For constipation, diarrhea and stomachache
We could have talk a lot
About how I should do it right.

Nay, I miss you so much
I miss the days when I was with you.
You massaged my head while I laid down on your lap
Even though I was already old enough and a mother myself.

Nay, sorry that I was not in your last day on this earth
That didn´t mean that I did not care for you
But I was glad that I talked to you in the phone before you left us
I know you were there in our bedroom when I was there these last few years.

I am not afraid of your ghost
You can put on the radio when I am sleeping
You can even pinch my thigh as you have always done
I don´t mind as I love to know that you are always with me.
HAPPY MOTHER´S DAY NAY!

*************************************
I know this is an emotional poem but that is what I feel now on Mother´s Day. Please appriciate the time with your mother. You´ll never know when it ends. Happy Mother´s Day to all.

Copyrights 2016 All Rights Reserved by ©Thelma Alberts

Happy Easter!

Good morning to all of you Guys who read this blog. We have a beautiful sunny day here where I am in Germany. We still have Easter Saturday which is a working day but some shops are closed. I am free today and so I will be able to enjoy the sunny day outside. What about in your country? Do you have a good weather now? I hope so.


As it is Easter weekend, I am sure that most of you there are busy preparing your Easter family bonding with delicious food to eat. Maybe some of you are just having a vacation in another country to relax from the stressful life especially at work. Maybe some of you just started coloring eggs with your children. I know that it is fun and you will be having a great time with the kids hunting the eggs, maybe at home or in the park of your choice.


Here is a link for you to know how Easter is celebrated in Germany.

http://hubpages.com/holidays/How-The-Germans-Celebrate-Easter-Season


Maybe you are going to have an Easter hunting with your friends or families. Here´s a link where you can hide the Easter egg chocolates and some other goodies.

http://blogjob.com/thelme55/2016/03/19/where-to-hide-easter-eggs-at-home/


Tonight or shall I say, this  Sunday dawn, our German time will be changed to summer time. The 1 hour time that was given to us last late October will be taken from us again. When it´s 3 a.m. dawn, it will be changed to 2 a.m. Changing time is always confusing to me. I hope this winter-summer time changing will be gone in the future. It just don´t give any sense to me. I will always be waking up late anyway. LOL!


Anyway, HAPPY EASTER 2016 to all of you. Take care and be safe always.


Copyrights 2016 All Rights Reserved by ©Thelma Alberts

Hello Spring!

Can you hear it? 

Can you smell it? 

Yes, it´s spring time again.

 I can hear the sounds of the chirping birds all around me. 

I can smell the fresh and clean air near me. 

I am living in a city but I am near to the woods than in the city itself. 

Flowers are coming out of the ground. 

Crocus, tulips,peonies are beginning to blossoms. 

Is it not great to be surrounded by nature? 

Is it not great to be healthy and alive?

Life is beautiful. 

Life is too short to be sad and to worry about everything we can´t control. 

Yes, life is what we make it. 

We have to make the best of it. 

Come, join with me. 

We will discover what beauty we have before us. 

We don´t have to go far away.

 We have it here.

In us

With us

In our hearts.

Spring!

The beginning of everything.

Desire, of the life we want to have.

Come join with me!

We greet the Spring

Happily.

Copyrights 2016 All Rights Reserved by ©Thelma Alberts