The Singing Christmas Tree

Momma?

This morning, Joey got to revel in not being the smallest in the room. We watched Susannah's baby Christopher for a couple of hours. Joey spending a lot of the time trying to keep his breakfast out of Christopher's reach, while explaining the fine art of playing cars.  (Christopher much preferred looking out the window for his momma to return: she's the one.)

When Susannah first showed up to drop off her baby, Joey ran out to meet her in the hall, waving a picture he'd just drawn.  Personally, I think it's one of the best things I've ever seen.  According to Joey's description, the pirates are unhappy because the other pirates have all the treasure.  But a super hero is about to fight them all.  Joey's mainly learned to draw by watching his big brother, so it makes sense that, later, when Joey showed his picture to Alex, he knew exactly what was going on: "Oh, look! That superhero is going to get those pirates!"

Susannah came bearing an early Christmas present. The Migros grocery store sells personalized Memory games through their photo department, and she made a set for me and the kids, with pictures of Zürich and Joey's play group.  It's kind of the perfect souvenir, and the kids, they loved it.

Today was a day for gifts: St. Nikolaus day.  When they woke up, Ella realized she'd forgotten to set out her shoes, but luckily St. Nikolaus didn't forsake her. There were no switches from Schmutzli, either.  Phew!

And then, Samichlaus gave Ella and her classmates all a gift this morning, too, during his visit to their school.  Ella said that the class all recited their Versli together, and he obligingly answered their questions: yes, he does indeed have a wife, and forty children, besides.  "That must be why his hair is so white," Ella noted.  Indeed.

Then he gave the kids each a little sweet roll, with raisin eyes and chocolate branch tucked under its arm: this is the traditional treat of the season, these little baked Christmas men.

Despite the fun, Ella came home a little troubled.  Apparently, her little crush on Felix seems to be reciprocated, and poor Felix was getting teased terribly today, which made Ella feel terribly sorry. Still, Ella took heart that he is still smiling at her from across the room, but she's now anticipating the day we return home to Seattle with quiet tears. My tragic heroine.

Luckily, a third grader in love is easily distracted, particularly on St. Nikolaus day. After Ella came home for the afternoon, we all went downtown to see what we could see.  We didn't pick the best day for it: it was raining steadily. But rain is also predicted for the next week, so there was no point in letting the weather stop us.

Heating the cheese with a gas flame.

Particularly, we wanted to see the Singing Christmas Tree, a Zürich tradition in which school children stand on tree-shaped risers, dressed in red like ornaments, and sing for the crowds.  (Dennis's office mate says that the kids always squabble over who gets to be on the tip-top of the tree. Of course.) In the little square surrounding the stand, they sell sausages and crépes and mulled wine and all sorts of other goodies, and it was our plan to have a quick picnic while listening to the music.

Cheesy scraped goodness.

Dennis and I were resolved to finally try Raclette, a Swiss specialty. As with most Swiss specialties, it is cheese based.  "Racler" is French for "to scrape"; Raclette is made by heating one side of a large block of cheese and then scraping all the melty bits onto toast (served with pickles and onions on the side) or boiled potatoes.  I feel a little silly for waiting this long to try Raclette, because it was absolutely delicious, as anything made of cheese and potatoes must be.

Like good Swiss kids, Ella and Alex at a dinner of enormous grilled sausages. Joey, I'm sorry to say, missed the whole thing, asleep in his stroller once again.

That was particularly tragic because, while we were watching the choir (from an international school, so they sang in English), Samichlaus himself found us in the crowd and hand-delivered oranges to the kids and peanuts to Dennis.

Pretty Bahnhofstrasse, with starry lights strung across the buildings

We only stayed for a couple songs and then retreated from the weather to the Christmas market in the Hauptbahnhof, in search of dessert and gifts for a few friends that Ella and Alex each wanted to shop for at home in Seattle.  They spent most of their time at a hand-made instrument stall.  While we examined all goodies, Alex revealed that his teacher often accompanies their class's songs on the recorder, but apparently she has quite the collection of odd percussion instruments, as well.  He knew how to play every obscure instrument in the stall.

For ourselves, Dennis stopped in the Sprüngli pastry shop and bought an immense treat, one of the rich chocolate cakes that we've been eying all year. As a bonus, the cashier threw in a few Luxumburgerli, the teeny-tiny macaroons that the store sells at the luxury price of a franc a piece, and which Ella has also been wanting to try all year.

So I guess Ella learned an important lesson today: nothing cures the lovelorn like chocolate.