Colmar and Christmas

Christmas in Germany...such a magical time. I feel like it suits this region to be Christmassy all year round. We've been to several markets around here so we wanted to branch out.

We made plans to go to the Strasbourg, France Christmas market. It's a big city we haven't been to yet and it seemed like a Christmas market that we needed to see. It's only about one and a half hours from here. A few days before, however, I was talking to some friends and they said it was so crowded and overwhelming and that we should consider the Colmar Christmas market which is just one more hour south. They said it's the most picturesque, charming town and supposedly the inspiration for the town in Beauty and the Beast. Say no more!! There goes the baker with his tray like always...AAAHHHH! We already reserved an AirBnB in Strasbourg so we stopped there first, met the family, got the keys and then headed south.

First things first. Mama gets the glühwein. Boys get Nutella waffles. Daddy gets nothing cuz he has to drive and take pictures.

No justice is done in these pictures. I should just post the professional ones from Google.

I want to live in there. I will love it and clean it and pet it and love it and...

Google image of the same houses above

Hawt Chawklet

Google. For really reals?

Google. Yes, this is really what it looked like!

This is a tiny, very cozy little restaurant where we had dinner. Most of the buildings were like this: completely covered in decorations.

Again, no justice is done in this picture. It was magical!

I bought this hollow metal heart. It's Christmasy but it's going to be on the wall all year.

I've seen a lot of very cute villages but Colmar has to be up there in the top five in the world. Fairy tale towns do exist and real people live and work in them. My heart is still a-flutter.

We spent the night at the house outside Strasbourg. The lady of the house is a Palestian/Egyptian and her husband is French and they have an adorable three year old daughter who was thrilled to have three boys to play with. They invited us to tea that evening and for a typical French breakfast in the morning. They were so nice to chat with - I think we all feel like friends now!

We drove home the next day, which was Christmas Eve with enough time to prepare for Christmas morning, get the jammies on, and watch a movie.

(Paleo) cookies for Santa to choke down and a carrot for Rudolph.

Christmas morning...

I think it was a success.

Since my parents visited us back in October we didn't have any plans for Christmas so we decided to invite a local refugee family over for dinner. Here's the backstory: I go to a toddler playgroup every Wednesday hosted at the Mennonite church. Some of the church members are really involved with the refugee families and one day a Syrian woman came to the group with her baby girl. She named her older children and I quickly figured out that her oldest son is in the same class as Tobin. Last year he talked about a new Arabisch boy that joined his class and I recognized the name. A few days later was the second grade Christmas party and one of the Mennonite gals said she was going to drive their family to the party and asked if I would be able to take them home. So that's how I got to know L, the woman from Syria, and her family. She and her husband have two boys ages 8 and 6, and a 4 month old baby girl who is named after the Mennonite gal who has been especially helpful to them. They can speak Arabic but only speak Kurdish at home. After one year of living here the boys speak German, too. Her husband can also do pretty well with German after such a short time and L gets by with a little German and English.

They accepted our invitation so I had to start planning the dinner. I knew they didn't eat pork and we all know how my last turkey turned out. I really wanted them to feel as comfortable as possible so I decided we'd have a Syrian Christmas dinner. Our local fruit and vegetable market is owned by a Turkish family so I asked them about some ingredients. It's not exactly the same but closer than what I could get at a regular grocery store. I got a big tub of real Turkish yogurt (better than anything!) and they ordered some Halal (like Kosher) chicken for me. I don't think they only eat Halal, but I wasn't sure at the time. Anyway, I made a cucumber and tomato salad with a bunch of herbs - the trick with Middle Eastern salads is to chop everything so small that you can eat it with a spoon and there is no such thing as too much parsley - and some herb and yogurt covered chicken. They both turned out really good!

I use WhatsApp to communicate with L and saying it was a "hot mess" would be an understatement. The translation from English to Kurdish and back just wasn't working, words were gibberish and we were both totally confused. So she had the clever idea to record her son asking the question in German, then I would play it for Tobin and then I recorded him saying the answer back. It was so cute with their little voices helping the moms!

We weren't sure what to expect for the evening. Would we be able to communicate enough in German with them? What would we talk about for three or four hours? Would they be really uncomfortable if we had wine or beer? They didn't appear to be very conservative because she doesn't wear a head covering, but I had no idea what to expect. The day before Christmas one of Marc's colleagues and his wife said they would like to come over and were really excited about meeting our new friends. And then L said her brother unexpectedly came up from Munich. I picked them all up and immediately the car smelled heavenly with whatever she made.

They came inside and right away seemed comfortable, made themselves at home and fell right into conversation. L brought her stuff into the kitchen, starting mixing it up, heating her dishes, and trying to wash my dishes as if she'd been to my house dozens of times. I quietly asked if her husband would like to have any beer and she said, "oh yes!" and that she would like some wine. I was so pleasantly surprised! Well then, let's get this party started!

The guys finding some good Kurdish music on YouTube

The boys with their Bey Blades

Everything went much better than I expected. The music was loud, the kids were playing, the food was heating and we were all mingling together and getting by with some English and some German.

Our Syrian feast
I never could have imagined that I would be living in Germany, having Christmas with a Kurdish family from Syria and that our common language would be quasi-German!

She made an amazing tabbouleh and this one dish of dried, sauteed, dark green leaves with garlic, chicken and lemon on rice. Oh my heaven. It was a very strong smell and flavor and so unlike anything I've ever tasted, but I couldn't get enough. I want more RIGHT NOW. She said she would make it for me when they invite us to their house. Yay! The fabled Syrian hospitality is definitely clear. She just wants to have people to cook for and talk with!

We had a lot of questions. They come from Aleppo and when things were getting pretty bad one year ago they traveled to Lebanon and stayed in a refugee camp. Then he showed us the actual video of them safely landing in a raft after sailing from Turkey to Greece. I've seen plenty of the harrowing videos online of all the people in life jackets getting out of the rafts, but to see their actual faces shouting for joy that they made it alive brought it so close to me. Then they had to walk, with their young boys and their stuff, for fifteen days with very little food to some other camp and from there they were sent to Germany. It sounds like there wasn't much choice in where they go and the authorities don't necessarily try to keep extended families together. Her brother was sent to Munich and his sister was sent to Vienna. They said that they would like to get together with other refugees to have friends with the same language, but they purposely avoid them because they don't want the locals to get uncomfortable seeing them in groups, as if they're plotting something.

They told us that back in Syria he had a very successful business in textiles. They had a very comfortable life with two cars and two or three houses around the country. They had 700 people at their wedding. They were always getting together in huge groups of family and friends for feasts that went on for days. Now it's all gone. They used to live in a bustling city where hundreds of people would pass their door every day. Now they live alone in a tiny German town with absolutely no one to be with except the few Mennonites who reached out. He has been trying to find work with no luck, obviously. For one, they were sent to a small town. Maybe he would have better luck if they had been sent to a bigger city. So he just sits around, young, able, and willing but with nothing to do at this point. Imagine being forced to flee with your family to a different country that you don't want to live in, not knowing the language, not knowing where to begin, with no friends or family and no money. You can tell that they both really miss their former life but are grateful for their safety here. Fortunately, most of their family is safely scattered around Europe, but her parents and young brother are still in Aleppo. Each time I see her I'm afraid to ask how they are. L is basically the human equivalent of a sparkly Christmas ornament ball and I'm afraid that one day I'll see her and she'll just be blank.

Who knows if they will ever get those good times back. Will they ever be back with friends and family for the feasts? Will their city ever be rebuilt? Certainly not to its former beauty, but something? They said that as soon as it looks like things are getting better they want to go back. But I've seen the before-and-after pictures and I can't imagine what they would go back to. Their entire previous way of life no longer exists except in their memories. I think about how sometimes I feel displaced, sometimes lonely, and missing people, but my people and their homes and cities are still there for me to go back to whenever I want. For us it's just choices - should we stay or should we go? We wanted to come here to live for awhile, but they didn't. They never wanted to leave their home and everything they had. It's probably just a pile of rubble now anyway.

Their baby girl is so precious and still at the age when she doesn't care who holds her. Of course I held her as much as possible, because baby. and. girl. Then Doren started yelling, "Lap!"

He yelled at me every time I took her away. "BABY! LAP!"

I encourage everyone to seek out those who find themselves in your community. I'm sure they're grateful to be safe but they don't necessarily want to be there. It must be such a lonely, desperate feeling. All they need is a little kindness and generosity. This family is so sweet. Nothing at all like the "stereotypical" idea of a Muslim refugee family. They're fun, bubbly, warm, generous and just want to be included. What if it were you, displaced and alone? Aren't we lucky to live in the safe place? I know that there has been plenty of discrimination and it breaks my heart hearing stories about people calling them dirty, nasty refugees and others yelling, "Go back where you came from!" Believe me, they would love nothing more, but there is no home left.

When it was about time for the kids to get to bed I drove them back to their house. She was gushing with thanks for inviting them over. I finally lost it when I hugged her goodbye. I told them I'm so sorry for what their family has been through and the ones still in Aleppo. They just patted me and smiled saying, "Amy, Amy, it's ok." When I got in the car L leaned in and said, "Du bist meine Schwester. You are my sister." ❤️