Monday, March 4, 2013

Weihnachtsfeier


Before getting into the thick of this post, an apology is in order.  I am sorry for not having posted in almost two months’ time!  Yours truly is a procrastinator but then again, you already knew that didn’t you.

Austria celebrates Christmas in a similar fashion as the Americans with a few finite differences.  For example, the Christmas trees are typically smaller than we’re used to.  The average height I found for sale on the street was about three to four feet.  These cozy “shrubberies” fit well into apartments and small homes where they’re placed atop a small table or stool and decorated with small wooden figurines.  It actually makes me question why we need such large tress in the first place.  Are we trying to match our huge homes with an appropriately sized piece of seasonal decoration?  Perhaps we’re all looking to recreate the ginormous Rockefeller Center tree with its thousands of lights and ornaments.  Anyway, I’ve come to realize our trees are HUGE (and while we’re at it, why a tree in the first place?).  They also celebrate the holiday on the 24th instead of the 25th, which is truly a minor discrepancy.

In the round of polite questioning that follows the Christmas holidays, the most important question on everyone’s mind is “how was your holiday.”  As soon as they find out I didn’t go home, they all ask, straight-away “weren’t you homesick being away.”  The short answer is no, not really.  I know that sounds horrible, as if I loathe my family.  It’s just that this Christmas was utterly wonderful and managed to fill any homesickness pains.  You might be wondering, what circumstances could possibly fill the void left by the absence of those who love you unconditionally while in the comfortable surroundings of your upbringing?  Simply put, a FEAST!

Iris Snijders Blok (Netherlands) and I realized sometime in late November that we were going to be in Graz for Christmas.  It was eventually agreed that there would be no better way to celebrate than to pull together a dinner.  There would be food, drinks, gifts, and games.  She graciously agreed to host the event as my apartment fits me and about 2.5 (Chinese) people if we all stood on each other’s toes while holding our breath after having been flattened by a pizza roller wearing corsets.  Everyone was asked to bring food and gifts while Iris and I took care of the drinks.  The final point of contention, what day to celebrate together, the 24th or 25th?  The democratic process resulted in the 25th (and by democratic process I mean I just made a decision when no one seemed to care very much). Once the Facebook invitations were all sent out, we had confirmations for 17 people.  I planned to make the following dishes:

1 huge bowl of mashed potatoes

1 whole roasted chicken

1 ginormous (like that word?) bowl of macaroni and cheese

1 small bowl of vanilla raspberry pudding

In addition, I went out and bought some gifts just in case people forgot to bring one of their own.

1 pair of candles

2 boxes of fancy teas (plural?)

1 box of chocolate cookies

1 box of pralines

1 box of about hundred pocket tissues, for the winter

1 packet of Ikea kitchen sponges, definitely my best gift idea ever

Peter Woods, a fellow Fulbright scholar, decided to join in the fun, which is a good thing because he made the most amazing sweet potato casserole ever.  I have to say, I was a great host, offering him the comfort of a thin blanket to soften the distance between him and the hard floor while he slept (seriously Peter I’m sorry).  On the day of the cooking frenzy began with the two of us rummaging through my tiny kitchen nonstop from 8 in the morning 4 in the afternoon.  It was exhausting yet rewarding work made easier by good company.

By 5 o’clock things at Iris’s place were in full swing.  Everyone had arrived and begun eating their varied dishes.  We had students from Greece, Turkey, Finnland, Egypt (it was her first Christmas), Japan, US, Ireland, Bosnia, Spain, and France; each with their own amazing food.  In fact, we had too much food and foolishly stuffed ourselves before realizing we had a round of dessert to get through (don’t worry we got around to it).  The best part was the lively, heartfelt chatter that went around the table.  Everyone was away from home, in a foreign country and as a result extremely open.  Smiles, laughter, stories, and earnest friendliness were thick in the air.  There was a moment when I just silently stood back and took it all in, letting it wash over me.  It truly made me happy.

It turns out we had just enough presents for everyone.  How lucky is that?  The only thing we lacked was a way to randomly give them out.  Through the use of the democratic process I suggested we play charades whereas the winner would get to pick his/her present.  You know Charades, that game where people have to act out a word/phrase given to them by an opposing team.  A fun, uncompetitive game of laughs and brotherly love, right? WRONG!  Dear readers, please tell me how I could have acted out the movie title “Stranger than Fiction?” uhhhhhh...it’s hard enough to do that around native English speakers!  The other team kept giving us RIDICULOUS words that no one knew how to act out!  Or maybe I’m just a sore loser...;-)  Either way, it’s always a good time watching your friends flap their arms around making crazy faces while people scream out the same answer ten times as if the actor hadn’t heard the first time (it’s a jackal,...a jackal?,  it’s a Jackal, JACKAL!, is it a jackal?).

Win or lose we all passed around the gifts, careful not to end up with anything we brought with us.  This was the part where the Egyptian girl’s face lit up.  She had never gotten a Christmas present before and was staring at the packing of her gift with an expression of wonder and childish excitement.  We decided to count to 5 and open them all at the same time.  It was somewhere between 3 and 4 that I realized the gift she was holding was none other than the package of sea foam colored Ikea kitchen sponges I had hastily bought three days before.  Bless her heart, the poor girl’s expression went from eagerness to confusion in seconds as she clearly did not expect something as mundane as sponges for her first Christmas present.  Everyone was confused (except for Peter and I who found the whole thing hilarious) and wanted to know whether or not she was really holding sponges in her hand.  Holding in my guilt ridden laughter, I took the opportunity to hand her my unopened gift which turned out to be a decorated mug, much more fitting.  All was saved.

Games, food, and conversation carried us through the rest of the night.  By the time I got back to my apartment it was 4 in the morning.  I went to sleep that night remembering their smiles and laughter.  But most of all, I remember that poor Egyptian girl’s face, classic.