Christmas Activities and Missionaries

First up, I thought I should mention that we found out our stuff won't arrive here until the end of January. :(  It isn't even leaving California until December 20th.  Oh well, we are going home (Texas) briefly for Christmas and for the birth of my new sister (!!), so we'll have to stock up on essentials while we are there.

This past week Darren and I were both sick and are just now recovering, so we didn't go on any grand adventures, but we did manage to fit in a few fun things.  On Monday (St. Nikolas Day) I found out that the Lindt Chocolate Factory store was having a sale, so I raced over to fill up on some yummy items.  While I was there, I ran into Samichlaus and Schmutzli.

Samichlaus on the left and Schmutzli on the right

Now Samichlaus sounds familiar, right?  This is St. Nikolas who comes on December 6th (St. Nikolas Day) and gives treats to good children.  They get things like mandarin oranges or gingerbread or candy from Samichlaus.  But who is Schmutzli?  He is Samichlaus's sidekick who takes care of the children who were naughty that year.  He is supposed to look scary so he wears dark clothes and his face is painted black.  He also carries a wooden broom or stick to hit the naughty children and he is supposed to drag the naughty children away into the woods.  Apparently Schmutzli is much scarier in other European countries, so I guess we should consider ourselves lucky!  

I wasn't very discreet trying to take this picture from my phone, so Samichlaus came over to talk to me and said something, but I had no idea what he said so I just smiled and said, "Ich spreche kein Deutsch, tut mir leid! (I don't speak German, sorry!)".  I was proud of myself for getting at least that out because if people talk to me unexpectedly in German, I just start answering in English because it's so automatic.  It definitely takes a lot of effort to become fluent in a language!

Most of the rest of the week I was in bed sick (Ich bin krank!), until I felt well enough on Friday to get out of the house.  I went with some other ladies from my church to go and serve lunch to about 30 LDS missionaries who are serving missions in the area.  They were having a conference at a nearby church building and had asked us if we could provide a meal for them.  I was sick during the week, so I didn't make any of the food, but was well enough by that day to go and help prepare and serve it.  We served them salad, rolls, lasagna, and pudding and cookies for dessert.

The lovely salads all ready to be served

The missionaries eating up

It is also very true that nineteen to twenty-one-year-old boys can eat!  We gave each of them two heaping servings of lasagna and most of them came back for seconds!  Good thing we had made so much.  But seeing as how expensive food is here, they might not be able to afford much on their little monthly food stipend from the church, so maybe they were really excited to have seconds.  It was also funny how surprised the missionaries were to have five American women show up who were from a local congregation.  I'm sure they were expecting some local Swiss people who didn't speak English, but little did they know our congregation is mostly Americans!  Most of the missionaries are also from the US, so everyone just spoke English like we could have been doing back in America.

Our lovely desserts, but we made sure to have healthy options, too, with the oranges 

The missionaries were very grateful for our service.  They sang us a song in German and presented us with some candy and a homemade card they all signed.

The lunch crew and our mascot, Charlie

We also had a mascot with us while we were preparing and serving lunch.  He was such a good dog and I got to take him for a walk!

Meet Charlie

I started feeling better on Friday and that's when Darren started to get sick.  So ended up just staying home for most of the day on Saturday.  Later on in the evening, Darren was feeling a little better so we decided to stop our church's Christmas party for a bit.  The theme was that all the church members had been summoned by Caesar Augustus to Bethlemen to be counted, as was done in the days when Jesus was born.  It was a very cute idea and lots of people had put a lot of effort into making a great party.  One lady had painted big murals of Bethlehem scenes.  Most everyone dressed up in Bethlehem attire.

Forgot the camera so these are taken with the phone, better than nothing though

 We all went to the Bethlehem "market" to have some fruit, meat, cheese, and bread from the stalls of the market.  The children under twelve then read and acted out the nativity story and sangs some songs.  They were really cute, though some had no idea what they were doing. :)  One little boy was dressed up as a sheep and he was adorable.

It was a really fun way to celebrate Christmas!