I’ve got a real treat for you today! I am taking you on a sleigh ride to peek at how people celebrate Christmas around the world! And you don’t even need to pay for the fare. It’s my feel-good Christmas surprise for you!
I’ve got a bunch of expat friends and bloggers together to write about what Christmas is like for them in their respective adopted countries. It’s a really fun insider’s look at this lovely time of the year.
Have you ever wondered how people celebrate Christmas in other countries? Maybe you didn’t even know that the 25th December is not always a big deal in holiday celebrations at this time of year. Well then, buckle up and come along for the ride to explore Christmas traditions around the world with me!
School summer holidays are starting. The kids are buzzed about summer break. The last months have been pretty intense. It’s time to get away and see something other than those same 4 walls. What are you going to do?
If you’re likely to be staying around home for the next few weeks (thank you, COVID-19), take a look at this seriously cool list of summer boredom busters, put together by real live, actual kids 😊.
Or perhaps you’re looking to cram the car full and hit the road on a road trip with the fam? Have a read of this road trip planner and make sure you’ve not forgotten a single thing to keep the kids happy and occupied in the back seats!
But what about if you’re thinking of even bigger plans for travelling with the kids this year?
I can help you out with planning for that too! And no, I am not talking about getting on a cruise ship…
Hellooooo!
Here we meet again, on the other side of New Year’s Eve! Happy New Year! Welcome to 2020
and your new decade 😊.
Last week I was so pumped up, so excited to think about the past year and write down some concrete plans for how I wanted my 2020 to look. I wrote all about how I’ll be having a great year here, do you remember? Now my questions for YOU: did you do that activity I recommended, about writing down 10 proud achievements from last year and 10 new goals for this year? If you did, well then *big hug* for you. What’s on your list? Are you excited about it too? If you didn’t, well don’t fret. There’s 51 weeks of the year left for you to work on your goals 😉.
I am absolutely
serious about my intentions to have a brilliant 2020. But there is also a flip
side to all celebrations and festivities at this time of year, despite me
throwing around words like “brilliant” and “great” and “pumped up”.
I am
Australian but have been living in Germany with my German Hubby for 14 years
now. And Germany is a looooong way from Australia, right?…
That means
every Christmas and New Year we can spend with only one half of our families
and friends; either the Aussie ones or the German ones here. And of course, a
hot, summery Australian Christmas spent outdoors is an entirely different thing
to a cold German winter one!
I have written quite a few posts before about the internal conflicts experienced by most expats (including myself!), such as this one here, but this time of year can definitely be a bit tougher for us expats so far from “home”. Living in a foreign country may sounds glamorous and fascinating, but not every real life day is like that 😉. (Don’t let social media fool you 😉.) Even more than the usual fluctuating, mildy homesick, funk over Christmas and New Year has been affecting me these last weeks though.
Why?
Because my “home” is burning. And I can’t be there.
You’ve probably seen this photo in every newspaper article and on all your social media the last days. Photo Credit: Matthew Abbott for The New York Times.
Sounds odd, maybe? Why would I want to be where those fires are and not a million miles away?!?
Halli Hallo! Here we go again, another round of Everything’s Famtastic to enthral and delight you. Last week’s post about dealing with grief was kinda heavy and not my usual thing. But then again, the passing away of so many friends and family in such a short time is also not “my usual thing”. But nobody is ever alone in their grief. I just hope that my post reached the right person at precisely the time when they needed some reassurance, comfort and strength after losing someone special.
One of my “usual things”
however, is photographs. I take a LOT of photos. Just ask my Hubby. Or my kids.
Or pretty much anyone who has known me for a while 😉. I
take photos with my mobile phone. I take photos with my big fancy-pants SLR
camera.
I not only take a lot
of photos, oh no. I collect photos from my Hubby’s mobile too. And when we get
together for special occasions with friends or family, I like to check out what
photos anyone else took too. Which means that I have a fairly large collection
of photographs.
Ahem. *clears throat* I
don’t think that I have been quite clear enough. I have a REALLY LARGE
collection of photos. I haven’t done a hard-core sorting and cleaning out of
photos from my laptop in years. Since approximately 2014 to be precise *buries
face in hands in shame*.
Ok confession time. I
take a LOT of photos. I have more than 40,000 photos stored on my laptop dated
from 2014 to present. I am a photography addict.
There is just so much
to do with all those photos… *wails*
Hooray! This week’s Everything’s Famtastic post is brought to you from a germ-free household! This is very exciting news, let me tell you. If you have no idea what I am talking about, you ought to go back and read my post from last week talking about how our family was knocked over one after the other like a set of bowling pins with a stomach virus. But healthy we are and here I am!
We are still finding and ridding our garden of strips of glittery streamers and pieces of confetti leftover from the confetti bomb my daughter and her friends gleefully enjoyed at her party last Saturday (see also, last week’s post here).
It’s wonderful that we
are all healthy, because that means we can get doing things outdoors. Like soaking
up the Vitamin D-filled sunshine… Like having spontaneous waterbomb fights over
the hedge with the neighbours… Like taking advantage of the season and picking
strawberries!!!
I might still have some adjustment issues with being an Australian expat living in Germany. Sure, a few months back I even posted about some of my personal difficulties of living an expat life here. But I’ll tell you what, I have totally found my groove when it comes to Erbeerzeit in this country.
You seriously have NO IDEA
how much I love strawberries.
Hi there! How are
things in your part of the world lately? This past week in our corner of
Germany we have started seeing a change in the weather. Sure, this winter
hasn’t been too extreme. But it’s still been, you know, cold.
This week though? Amazing
colours at sunrise of golds, pinks, purples and blues. More sun and blue sky
throughout the day. We even had unseasonably warm temperatures hovering around
the mid-teens (that’s Celsius, for
you North American types!). The plants are covered in leaf buds. The early
bloomers like snowdrops and crocuses are on display. Some of the other bulbs
are heavy with flower buds waiting for the weather to warm up just that little bit more. Spring is definitely on
it’s way. Hallelujah!
However, the main excitement around these parts at the moment is Karneval. And by “around these parts” I mean in many regions of Germany and specifically the kids in our house 😉. The other week I even posted about how to sew a Hulk costume in time for Karneval this year. Karneval fever is well and truly alive!
But what? You haven’t
heard of Karneval?
I didn’t really elaborate too much in the last post, it’s true. Well, let me try to explain a little. Depending on how hardcore you are about it and whether you are in a Karneval club or not, Karneval may be seen as either:
a) only the big loud street parade that occurs in February or March and blocks off the city streets, or
Here we are at the start of February! How’s the year going for you already? My January went pretty much as I had imagined it, with a few unavoidable hiccups not of my doing. But all in all, a pretty good start to the new year.
As you may have read in my last couple of posts here and here about what it’s like for an expat to return home to visit, I actually spent almost all of January in summery Australia, my birthplace. The boundless blue skies, the hot sunny days, drinking wine with friends and family, regular visits to the beach… *swoon*
From this to…
Departures
I say “almost” all of January, because my trip Down Under came to it’s inevitable end last week. So, after a blessed 5 weeks in Australia catching up with family and friends and mood-enhancing, Vitamin D-filled sunshine, the plane- and my accompanying tears- departed Sydney airport last Friday. The trip between Germany and Australia is one of the longest you can actually experience anywhere in the world (Germany to New Zealand would probably be the winner).
Just last week I posted about Reverse Culture Shock where I talked about my (and most repatriates’) feelings of returning to my “home country”.
In a way it was a
difficult post to write, as it required quite a lot of introspection and
carefully-planned wording. Speaking about travelling and relocating and returning
brings with it a rollercoaster of emotions and memories. Some great, some not
so good and some painful. Not only for me, the writer, but I imagine also for a
lot of readers who have been or are still going through a similar phase.
You know that saying
“Home is where the Heart is”? But what if you have TWO homes?
As you probably already noticed, I was missing in action for a few weeks. This was because my family and I (all 5 of us!) flew from Germany back to Australia to celebrate Christmas last month! I am still here in Australia and thought “Hey! Why not keep on writing about my experiences here?!?”. And so I shall…
I LOVE being back in Australia. There are so many awesome things about being here: my entire extended family, old friends, the weather, the hot summers, the long, sandy beaches, foods of my childhood, restaurants serving awesome, international-flavoured delights, driving on the left (yes, left!) side of the road, I can speak English all the time and be understood, the cute and furry native animals, the wide open blue skies …
But, and this is a big
BUT… it is not entirely easy or without complication coming back here. And I am
not talking about the humdrum yet stressful things like: How the hell can we afford
to fly there? or Seriously, will we be able to fit everything in the suitcases?
or Is the school going to really reject
our request for the girls to miss the last couple of days of school?
Helloooooo!! It has been too long since I put up a proper post here on Everything’s Famtastic. I did briefly explain my reasons why here but basically, my family and I flew from Germany back to my native soil Australia for Christmas.
Now since I am talking
about it, allow me to fill you in to what it’s like to celebrate Christmas in
Australia (at least in my family) and what it’s like if you are a returning
expat with a multicultural bilingual family to boot. *phew!* That was a long
sentence 😉
I love Christmas time. And I especially love that our family has
tried to include traditions from both the German side and the Australian side,
no matter which country we happen to be celebrating in. Naturally the kids
think it’s BRILLIANT that the Christmas celebrations never seem to end. German
traditions, Australian traditions, immediate family, extended family, food,
presents… Seriously, Christmas in our family of 5 can last several days.
