fröhe weihnachten

16- When i woke up, no one was home, but during breakfast sven and alexia came in to put presents under the tree- then birgit came home from shopping, then meike woke up from the noise. after everything settled down, i checked my emails and sent the next big chunk of these. i would love to just send off a little one every afternoon, but that´s just not how life is set up here. in the afternoon, we went to church. i was tired, and depressed as ruth sent me an email that she was so busy she wishes i could change my plane ticket. feeling unloved and abandoned in a foreign country is not a great way to enter into a german church service. was close to tears a couple of times. all these people with family and at home, going to church for christmas, and the only 2 people i know also speak to each other in this language i don´t understand. I wasn´t in a mood to small talk in english, let alone in german. We sang o come all ye faithful in german, and that was fun. But really, i didn´t understand any of the service or the conversation. Alex, one of meike´s friends who sat in front of us, wished me merry christmas, and it was a gift as english always is, but it seemed so strange- “christmas” has such particular american connotations for me. This is a completely different winter festival- weihnachten.