Gluhwein party & preparations
Tobi and I had decided that we should introduce gluhwein in japanese culture. As they don't really celebrate christmas here (it is not even a free day for me) there was still something to explain about this (european) tradition. We started the sunday before to bake lebkuchen and berliner brot, traditional german cookies eaten a lot in christmas season. We also had a lot of other traditional european seasonal foods sent/brought by Tobi's and my parents, such as speculaas, pepernoten, taai-taai, kerstkransjes etc.
Together with Tobi, Mae Rose and Kazusa (a girl Mae Rose and I got to know in our new language class) we prepared everything in my room, as I'm the only one with an oven... I also made lasagne for lunch and dinner, something we don't often eat here ofcourse. I forgot to take pictures in the beginning, so sorry Kasuza is not there in these pictures...
Berliner brot
Making the lebkuchen
a whole plate full of cookies! Jummie! We made about 75 of these in total by the way...
they still had to be covered with molten white or dark chocolate, the chopstick came in quite handy here to stir and apply the hot molten chocolate
We prepared a short presentation to explain about christmas. We knew it was a mixture of the north european yule fest (celebrating the shortest day - longest night), the roman saturnalia and the christian belief, but we read a lot more on Wikipedia and tried to filter out the most interresting and well known customs and their origins.
Sorry, no pictures of the rest of the party... too busy wwith the gluhwein ;-) Most japanese seemed to like the stuff, both the gluhwein and the cookies.
Together with Tobi, Mae Rose and Kazusa (a girl Mae Rose and I got to know in our new language class) we prepared everything in my room, as I'm the only one with an oven... I also made lasagne for lunch and dinner, something we don't often eat here ofcourse. I forgot to take pictures in the beginning, so sorry Kasuza is not there in these pictures...
Berliner brot
Making the lebkuchen
a whole plate full of cookies! Jummie! We made about 75 of these in total by the way...
they still had to be covered with molten white or dark chocolate, the chopstick came in quite handy here to stir and apply the hot molten chocolate
We prepared a short presentation to explain about christmas. We knew it was a mixture of the north european yule fest (celebrating the shortest day - longest night), the roman saturnalia and the christian belief, but we read a lot more on Wikipedia and tried to filter out the most interresting and well known customs and their origins.
| Roman Empire | Scandinavia | Catholic Church |
| Saturnalia + Sol Invictus |
Yule-fest (Pagan) |
Christian |
| Mid-winter feast Candles Eating/drinking Giving presents Birthday celebr. Merry-making School Holiday Christmas hat (pilleus) |
Mid-winter feast Fire/lights Eating/drinking Boots/socks Christmas tree Mistletoe |
Birth of Christ Nativity scene Three kings Comet / star St. Nicholas |
Sorry, no pictures of the rest of the party... too busy wwith the gluhwein ;-) Most japanese seemed to like the stuff, both the gluhwein and the cookies.