A Quiet Christmas Eve

Yesterday the shops were so full that there were many I didn't even want to enter. But today, when I woke up in the afternoon and made my way outdoors, most shops were closed and the ones that weren't were reasonably empty.

I went to a craft store, hoping for beeswax candles but they had little stumpy ones whereas I wanted other ones; then to a yarn store where I bought wool for crocheting or knitting gloves; and finally to an art store with its painting canvases, tubes, and easels. After that I also popped into a bookshop; then an Italian import shop with shelves full of wine, pasta, chocolates, and a display case with antipasti and racks of bread in the rear. One of the import shop attendants was kindly patient as I juggled all of my previous purchases; she fetched out a carton so I could carry things, and also mentioned that the breads were half price. Seeing that she was worried they'd go stale over the holidays, and nothing loth, I bought a small ciabatta bread.

When I returned home, Mama had prepared a salad: leafy green lettuce and radicchio with dressing. T., too, had already graced us with her presence (she went straight to our apartment after her booster anti-Covid vaccination) and ordered a loaf of crusty golden-brown bread with cherry pastries.

Afterward I cycled off to see gardens in the twilight. A few lamps were shining from the arbours and wide snowflakes drifting onto the cold, wet ground. There were very few people around, none in the gardens. On the way back I sang a Christmas carol in a weak little voice since nobody seemed to be around, the snow steaming on lights that were projecting onto a quiet industrial building. An S-Bahn train wheezed by, and I suddenly saw that there were in fact people within earshot: two railroad workers clad head-to-toe in orange, standing by the stone-ballast tracks and raising a respectful arm in greeting to the conductor as the train passed. Hopefully they were not creeped out.

Then we had dinner: lamb filets baked with garlic, sage, and butter; Middle Eastern dips like hummus, dolmades, and two types of tabbouleh; Turkish flatbread; more salad with radicchio; French white wine from the Italian import store; and finally Lebkuchen from a tin that my company sent all of us for Christmas.

Now the Christmas presents are in the living room ready to be opened tomorrow (as usual we have very few, because our household is already tightly stuffed). We're awaiting the visit of one of our uncles tomorrow as well. My mother is watching a Three Tenors concert on television, my brothers were playing the cello and the mandolin, and T. is playing Minecraft. I took a nap and have been spending time on the internet too. But maybe I will finally start knitting or crocheting.

I hope I will feel more truly rested tomorrow. The past year has been hard, like for many others; and it's been a little embarrassing how close I have been to tears almost non-stop for the past few weeks.

Street Marketing in Winter

This morning I ate breakfast — buttery croissants and a baguette that my mother and brother fetched from a French brasserie nearby, eggs and coffee.

I wasn't feeling especially spry and therefore dreaded the bicycle ride to Prenzlauer Berg for my voice/business coaching. But letting go of my pride and going down a gear to make it easier to pedal helped. Along the way I went to a corona test station, to make sure I wasn't putting my coach at risk of infection.

It surprised me that the Christmas market at Potsdamer Platz was open, since I'd thought that the market at Breitenbachplatz was one of the few outliers — a market that opened despite the high Covid incidence.

Back at home, I went grocery-shopping at an outdoor market. The market guards in neon-green vests appeared to be keeping a more alert eye out than a few weeks ago when the corona incidence wasn't as high. One of the guards saw a seller waiting for me to put produce in the shopper bag I'd brought along, and told the man that he should have offered a bag to me. 'She didn't need one,' he answered, and also for environmental purposes I agreed (the plastic bags that are handed out freely at the market strike horror into my soul a little). Still, I was touched by the thoughtfulness.

I had thought that I had arrived so late that most shoppers had gone. In fact one man with a wizened face was dragging a wheeled platform piled high with empty cartons onto the ramp of a truck near the entrance, deepening the impression that it was closing up. But there were elbow-to-elbow throngs of people, one to two rows deep, further in.

Kohlrabi had appeared on the stands since it is winter, alongside Hokkaido pumpkins and a lot of persimmons (sometimes sold as 'Persimmon,' other times as 'Kaki'). The usual bunches of mint and parsley were on sale. Then potatoes, ginger root, lemons, green pepperoni peppers, winter-themed bed linen sets that were surrounded by a throng of interested women, flatbreads, pineapples, pale watermelons, yellow cantaloupes, the customary bolts of cloth, eggs, dried spices, meat, Turkish delight and tahini halva, sunflower seeds and olives in varying colours, cauliflower heads, tons of tomatoes, etc.

It felt wonderful to be amongst so many people. I didn't linger and generally didn't stand too close to anyone, so it still felt safe.

Earlier I bought an amaryllis bulb, and now my youngest brother is the happy owner. Every year I want to put boughs in a vase to celebrate the feast of St. Barbara on December 4th — not just for religious reasons or nostalgia, but also because I like the symbolism of blossoming twigs in winter — and yet I usually forget. But I hope the bulb is a fair equivalent.