The first advent candle is burning

I already told you about the German tradition with the 4 candles representing the 4 Sundays before Christmas. Yesterday we lit the first and I remembered a hilarious story about Christmas lights in a small German village. It's a bit like "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" and here is a short summary.

It all starts with an old lady installing 3 electrical candles on her windowsill. The neighbor counters with a Scandinavian lightning ensemble with 10 arms and 15 watt each in his kitchen window. Shortly after that, the local power plant notices some alleged defects in electricity meters. A couple then applies 96 halogen lights in their backyard which irritates the birds who start nesting immediately. Half an hour later the owner of a nearby discotheque switches on a laser beam and after a few minutes a grain elevator crumbles down due to the permanent fire of a Santa Claus laser projection. The alarm signal in the generator hall of the power plant is ignored because of a Christmas party. A WWII vet lights 190 super troupers he secretly bunkered to project the star of Bethlehem into the night sky. An hour later, a group of Asian business men is wandering the streets of the village after a Boeing 747 headed for Sydney erroneously landed the the driveway of the local bakery which is adorned by 3.000 colorful neon lights. Afterwards, a NASA space probe sends pictures of a supposed supernova from the northern hemisphere and Houston has absolutely no explanation. The above mentioned power plant is now running beyond its maximum load. A student wakes in the middle of the night and is pleased with the sunny morning. At exactly 23:12 she switches on her coffee machine. The sudden darkness of the whole district is only disturbed by the explosion of the power plant. People are wandering the pitch-black land - people who weren't satisfied by the light of one single candle.

I always cry with laughter but in our estate there are similar tendencies… Therefore I set up our Christmas tree yesterday and urged hubby to install two light chains in our windows, too. If he is going to put up that weird Santa climbing an illuminated rope ladder in our garden (and I hope, I can prevent that), Else won't stop barking, because she barks at everything new in our household. 

This weekend we received a parcel from Saxony filled with original Dresden Christmas Stollen, which means I don't have to bake any cake until Christmas (or even New Year). And it is soooo delicious! Furthermore, we had our first mulled wine for this winter (and we had white one instead of red), and Saturday evening I made stuffed zucchini and flat bread. Fortunately we had lots of leftovers I could serve on Sunday - pretty handy, right?

And as I still have some sprigs and twigs and didn't know what to do with the fabric tree ornaments, I sewed little hearts and folded some Scandinavian stars all from the same fabric, and this is what I got: 

Merry first advent, y'all!