Boxing Day - the Second Day of Christmas

Germans celebrate Christmas in style - Christmas Eve is a very special evening - all the stores close and most of the restaurants.  Then they celebrate two days of Christmas - the 25th and 26th.  Luckily for our guests, everything does not shut down on Boxing Day.  So, we took the street car into town, hiked around in some very bitter weather, and saw a bit of the city.  Our first stop was the Goethehaus, which is the building where Goethe was born and lived until he was a young man.  The building has been beautifully preserved - Gary told us a fascinating story of how in the late 1930's the head of the Goethe Society anticipated the war and destruction that would soon follow and began having drawings made (by Art students - what an excellent cover!) of details in the house, and began moving furniture and artifacts into hiding places in the countryside.  You see the house, and Gary standing in Goethe's Library.

We then took a ride on the Ebbelwei Express (that is Hessen for Apfelwein) which toured us around the city center.  We each got a bottle of apple wine or juice and some "salted pastries," (I am holding a sample of each).  You can see I used a shot of the Ebbelwei Express from quite some time ago.) 

Wanling and Steve are illustrating their gift of always turning their heads or moving when I take a picture (I am beginning to think this is intentional).

We ended the evening at our friends' house, Jeremy and Petra's.  You can see Wanling with boxing gloves in one of the pictures.  Jeremy and she had a boxing round or two.  Then we had a lovely dinner of all our Christmas leftovers.