Christmas is Coming!

Well, it's been awhile since I posted and I am sorry about that! This won't be a long post and probably no pictures this time so I apologise for that too!

The kids finished school at lunchtime last Tuesday and they don't go back to school until 7th January - a nice little break. That's good for me right now as I am sick as a cat and the weather has been pretty cold and nasty so I'm quite happy that I don't have to go in and out of the house and on the public transport if I don't feel like it.

We are making slow progress to being ready for Christmas Day. All presents now wrapped, Christmas cake made, all ingredients purchased for other baking - well, that's about it but that's not too bad is it? We are having 9 people around for Christmas lunch and I must admit that I do find that a bit daunting - I am used to providing a cold Christmas lunch for that many people but this whole 'bake a turkey' thing has got my head spinning.

We have a very small oven so it is very hard for me to figure out how everything is going to come together so that both the turkey and the vegetables are served hot. I'm sure it will be OK on the day but it's a bit stressful. Not to mention the stress of the fact that we live in an apartment above our landlady and 6 of our guests are children!!!! Noisy children!!!! And no, we do not have easy access to a park or anywhere we can take the kids to blow off some energy - and besides, did I mention it is cold??!!

Yeah, well, that's all the joie de vivre from me for now - Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays to you all - please keep your fingers crossed that my meal is a success and that the children will be kept happily occupied with the endlessly entertaining activity of sitting quietly and speaking when spoken to!!!!

Nikolaustag - 6 December

This blog entry is a little late but as we have joined in the tradition of Nikolaustag (St Nicholas Day) since we moved to Vienna I thought it was worth writing about.

"On the night of Dec. 5 (in some places, the evening of Dec. 6), in small communities in Austria and the Catholic regions of Germany, a man dressed as der Heilige Nikolaus (St. Nicholas, who resembles a bishop and carries a staff) goes from house to house to bring small gifts to the children. Accompanying him are several ragged looking, devil-like Krampusse, who mildly scare the children. Although Krampus carries eine Rute (a switch), he only teases the children with it, while St. Nicholas hands out small gifts to the children. In some regions, there are other names for both Nikolaus and Krampus (Knecht Ruprecht in Germany). Sometimes Krampus/Knecht Ruprecht is the good guy bringing gifts, equal to or replacing St. Nicholas. As early as 1555, St. Nicholas brought gifts on Dec. 6, the only “Christmas” gift-giving time during the Middle Ages, and Knecht Ruprecht or Krampus was a more ominous figure." (this information is from the website http://german.about.com/library/blnikolaus2.htm)

In Vienna, there doesn't appear to be an actual Nikolaus or Krampus going from door to door. Here the tradition seems to be that the children leave their shoes out on the evening of the 5th December and in the morning they will be filled with walnuts and mandarines if the children have been good or lumps of coal if they have been bad. Even this seems to have been watered down a little and now you can buy chocolates and sweets with either Nikolaus or Krampus on the wrappers- this is what my kids receive as they aren't keen on mandarines and lumps of coal are hard to find!!

Vienna and Modern History

This may be a strange subject for a blog entry but I am a student of History and my main area of interest is Russian History (specifically the period since the last Tsar) and since moving to Vienna I have been able to really see where History was made.

Currently I am reading 'Young Stalin' by Simon Sebag Montefiore and he talks about the time Stalin spent in Vienna before the 1917 Revolution in Russia. It just amazes me that Stalin, Hitler and Tito were all in Vienna at the same time yet never met (of course they had no reason to meet - Hitler was a struggling artist, Tito was working as a mechanic and Stalin was a leading Bolshevik and working on his "Marxism and the National Question"). Montefiore says that both Hitler and Stalin enjoyed walking in the gardens of the Schoenbrunn Palace - these gardens are still beautiful (see below) and I have walked through them many times in the past 2.5 years.

I love living in Europe and being able to actually walk where people who shaped the direction of the world in the 20th Century have walked. It is such a blessing for me, with my love of European History, to have this chance to live for an extended period in Europe. Similarly, I am grateful for the opportunities to see the Art, experience the Music and enjoy the Architecture of the Europe I grew up learning about.

There, enough for now - I promised a friend I would try and put up a blog entry today and I have kept my promise - hope it hasn't been too boring.