Nicht nur der Baum wird geschmückt

Es weihnachtet sehr und das soll man auch sehen. Nicht nur drinnen, auch draußen werden allerhand Dinge von den Briten aufgestellt und aufgehängt. Die Beleuchtung sorgt dafür, dass es draußen fast genauso hell ist wie drinnen.

Es gibt alle möglichen Varianten von weihnachtlich schön bis ziemlich kitschig. Für den Christbaum gibt es bunte Lichterketten die Weihnachtsmusik spielen.  Auch viel Weihnachtsdeko zum Aufstellen macht Musik und blitzt und blinkt. Vor allem diese Leuchtschläuche die an Fenstern und Balkonen angebracht werden.

Ein geschmücktes Haus

Als ich das erste Mal zu Weihnachten in England war, stand mir der Mund offen wie viele Sachen in den Gärten standen und was alles an den Hauswänden hing. Es war abends 18 Uhr und doch fast taghell. Die Rentierschlitten samt Weihnachtsmann und einzelne Rentiere, in jedem Garten stand etwas. Natürlich ist alles was nach Baum und Busch aussieht auch mit Lichterketten behängt. Doch als ich den 2m hohen aufgeblasenen Bart Simpson mit Weihnachtsmantel und Mütze gesehen habe, war ich vollends geschockt. Ich bin froh, dass das in Deutschland noch nicht so krass ist.

Sonst ist Weihnachten in England schön, die Bescherung ist zwar erst am 25. aber dafür können die Kinder den  Tag über mit den neuen Sachen spielen statt bald danach ins Bett zu müssen.

FROHE WEIHNACHTEN  MERRY CHRISTMAS

Rüdesheim Christmas Market

The Christmas Market on the bank of the Rhine

The Christmas Market on the bank of the Rhine

This week the Monday Podcast visited the Christmas Market in Rüdesheim – also known as the “Christmas Market of Nations“.

Having visited Rüdesheim previously, I drove to a car park near the centre of the town, rather than using the signed car parks for the Christmas Market, which turned out to be futher away.

The market itself is located in the streets of the town centre and along the bank of the Rhine.  There are stalls with food and drink, but also handicraft stalls selling Christmas decorations and household goods.

The Obergasse in Rüdesheim

The Obergasse in Rüdesheim

Two particular highlights are the nativity scene in the market square and the Christkind who opens a door on the advent calendar each evening at 6pm.

The market has an international theme, so that many of the stalls sell traditional goods and dishes from their own countries.

Eating Churros - a Spanish speciality

Eating Churros – a Spanish speciality

Unfortunately it rained on and off throughout the day, but even so there were large numbers of people there – especially after it got dark.

To find out more, listen to the podcast:

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Großes ß

It’s not often that I can say this, but I used a new letter of the alphabet for the first time this weekend.

Now it’s quite possible, that you are not even aware that the German alphabet has a new letter.  It is, in fact the Eszett (ß), which now has a capital equivalent.

Until now, the letter ß – which replaces ss or sz in a word  – has strictly speaking only be a lower case letter.  If you wrote a work in capital letters, you were expected to write it out in full.  eg. muß became MUSS.

Apparently there was a capital ß in East Germany for a time and it was even used on the cover of the East-German Duden dictionary for a number of years, but only in April of this year did it become formally recognised for the whole of Germany.  (For techies out there: it is part of ISO/IEC 10646, unicode U+1E9E)

So when I was writing my Christmas cards this weekend, I addressed them to “GROßBRITANNIEN” – hence writing my first capital ß.

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