We´re all mad here

Candy canes

We had candy canes on our Christmas tree only once. Offspring wanted to eat one, thought it was inedible and put it in the bin. Candy canes look nice, but fortunately are hard to get here, because I like nice things on the tree. So the last ones I saw was in NZ, as a part of the plate with sweets we got for Christmas by our host.

Call me a patriot, but that was an easy choice, by favouring Silent Night. 201 years old this Christmas, performed for the first time in a little town near Salzburg (the one where all of my children were born in the local hospital), and now I live in the town the composer of the song lived for a big part of his life. I know, the tune is simple, the wording plain, but it gets played in our churches from Christmas Mass until Three Kings Day, and it awakens a special Christmas feeling inside me when hearing it. That one Christmas we spent in NZ they played it in a candy store when we were shopping. Daughter mine began to sob in distress, because she´d have liked to be at home with the rest of the family, even if she was the reason we were not. The shop staff listened to her story, and one hour later we sat in the coffee shop together, having the best Christmas time ever. I think we came back to our rooms at two in the morning, just in time to find that someone had brought a plate of chocolate to our room. Thank you very much, Santa! I know I´m late for thanking, as always! So the next day we took this picture:

Bright

We did a tour to one of the lakes nearby a few days ago, parked the car and did a short walk across the quite famous market town centre with its old houses. Probably some of you have alrea seen some of those buildings in movies, the location is quite popular and so very romantic they say, especially the White Horse Inn! We went aboard a ship then, had mulled wine and vanillekipferl. On the way back to the car I did a picture of the giant lantern in the water. It looked quite nice, even if I think it does not really fit into the overall picture of the little town with its very traditional Christkindl market. Funny thing is that Santa is absolutely forbidden in the whole town area. I haven´t seen a single one. So do people really refrain from putting this one up voluntarily or do nosy neighbours report to the community when the overfed bearded man pops up in a garden, because the owner likes him? I would not want a community define which kind of decoration I may have in my own place...