Mother of Invention, the Christmas Episode

The other day Vivienne and I happened to catch an episode of Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs. For some reason his task that day was to bake a pie. (I think it is safe to say they are running out of ideas for truly dirty jobs on that show...) Regardless of how dirty that task may have been for him, Vivienne has since been asking me "Mommy, when are you going to make a pie for me?" What better occasion than Christmas Eve dessert?

I pulled out my 1951 edition of Margaret Mitchell's Mealtime Magic Desserts and got to work. Having never before made pie crust from scratch I was a little nervous, but it turned out alright. I mixed it, I chilled it, I rolled it out only to discover that I no longer have a pie pan. Oy! Now what? Time to get my Martha Stewart on. I may not have a pie plate but I have a Christmas Tree pan!

I need to work on the oven temp next time but I think I may have started a new tradition! The kids aren't big fans of apple pie it turns out, but it's small enough that Heinz and I can share it over a few days without being complete gluttons! And yes, I think Santa is bringing hair cuts to all the children at our house this year...

From our house to yours, 

Merry Christmas 

and a very 

Happy New Year 

to you all!

A Christmas Tradition for Each Culture

Growing up with the last name Tortorelli from my full-blooded, second-generation Italian father, everyone immediately recognized my Italian heritage. Yet my mother, also second generation, is of full-blooded German ancestry. Since Heinz grew up in and is a citizen of Switzerland, everyone immediately recognizes his Swiss side. However, the reality is that his father, born and raised in Germany, moved to Switzerland in his early 20's. In those days, ancestry was still only traced through the father, so the boys were automatically German citizens, even though they were born in Switzerland. Heinz remembers when he, his Dad and his brother all petitioned for and received their Swiss citizenship. Also in those days dual citizenship was not recognized so they all had to forfeit their German citizenship. 

To recap, I am half Italian, half German. Heinz is half Swiss, half German. Doing the math (come on, fractions aren't that hard!) that makes our children more German than anything else, and German on both sides of their lineage. Personally, I am really enjoying the opportunity to get more in touch with our shared German ancestry through the kids' German education. Learning about the holiday traditions is my favorite part and my favorite holiday of all is Christmas! This year we can celebrate so many aspects of the holiday as we explore the layers of our family's heritage. With Christmas of course comes Santa Claus, and all his cultural and religious variations, based on which history you choose to adopt.

An over-simplification taken from Google:

Saint Nicholas, also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra (Demre, part of modern-day Turkey) in Lycia. Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker. He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, and thus became the model for Santa Claus, whose modern name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas, itself from a series of elisions and corruptions of the transliteration of "Saint Nikolaos".

Saint Nicholas day in the German Speaking countries:

In Northern Germany, Sankt Nikolaus is usually celebrated on a small scale. Many children put a boot called Nikolaus-Stiefel (Nikolaus boot) outside the front door on the night of 5 December. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts and sweets overnight, and at the same time checks up on the children to see if they were good, polite and helpful the last year. If they were not, they will have a tree branch (Rute) in their boots instead. {This branch was meant as a switch, to beat you with if you have been bad. My friend Miia, who grew up in Germany says she remembers this happening to her sister (the branch but not the beating). She says she is still disturbed by her parents decision to do that!} Sometimes a Nikolaus impersonator also visits the children at school or in their homes and asks them if they have been good (sometimes ostensibly checking his golden book for their record), handing out presents on the basis of their behavior. This has become more lenient in recent decades, and this task is often taken over by the Weihnachtsmann (Father Christmas). In more catholic regions, Nikolaus is dressed very much like a bishop and rides on a horse, welcomed at public places by a large crowd. Typical in Germany for Saint Nicholas Day is the Stutenkerl, a pastry made of sweet leavened dough.

In Swiss folklore, the Christmas gift-bringer is known as Samichlaus (like Dutch Sinterklaas a corruption of the name of St. Nicholas). The Swiss version of the scary companion of St. Nicholas corresponding to the Austrian Krampus and the German Knecht Ruprecht is known as Schmutzli. 

The companions of Saint Nicholas are a group of closely related figures who accompany St. Nicholas in German-speaking Europe and more widely throughout the territories formerly in the Holy Roman Empire. These characters act as a foil to the benevolent Christmas gift-bringer, threatening to thrash or abduct disobedient children. Jacob Grimm (Deutsche Mythologie) associated this character with the pre-Christian house spirit (kobold, elf) which could be benevolent or malicious, but whose mischiveous side was emphasized after Christianization. The association of the Christmas gift-bringer with elves has parallels in English and Scandinavian folklore, and is ultimately and remotely connected to the modern Christmas elf in American folklore.

Heinz remembers remembers being told as a child that the Schmutzli would shove those who did not behave into their brown burlap sack. According to his Mom, when she was young one particularly badly behaved neighbor boy was actually stuffed into a sack in an effort to scare him into behaving! No word on whether it worked! (or whether it simply scarred him for life...)

The Swiss Club of Shanghai has a lovely Christmas party every year. We attended last year and were really looking forward to going again this year, the weekend before St. Nicholas Day. Samichlaus and his Schmutzli arrived on time and all the children were invited to gather round while he checked their names in his book. 

 As we walked with Conrad and Vivi into the adjacent room set up for the kids to meet with him, Conrad saw the ominously dressed Schmutzli in his hooded brown tunic and tugged on my sleeve. He whispered in my ear “Mom! I don’t want to get shoved in the sack!!”

Samichlaus opened his book and had two comments to make to each of the children: admonishing them for one weakness and then congratulating them on one thing they are doing well. Amazingly the Samichlaus who visits the Swiss Club of Shanghai every year speaks German and Swiss German, French, English and Chinese, seamlessly! This year he spoke to Conrad and Vivienne in German. Then they were brave enough to take their gifts from the Schmutzli.

 “Daddy, we didn’t get shoved in the sack!”

This year, Saint Nicholas Day is on a Thursday. Wednesday we attended our regular weekly German playgroup and reviewed what typically happens and how most Germans celebrate. We were well prepared to participate in our own home. The kids each put a boot out before going to bed Wednesday evening, their own Nikolaus-Stiefel for St. Nick to fill. What fun to check them the next morning and see what he brought!

It was quite cold but they got some neat things! We spoke to Grammy later that day and she told the kids that she always got an orange in her shoe for St. Nicholas' Day, too! I expect she told my sisters and I that at some point but I had forgotten it. Fun to relearn so much about my Mom's childhood as well.  

So far the kids have not asked me why they get to see Santa Claus so often. I'm not quite sure how I'll respond if they do! We've tossed around the idea that he visits Germany on the 6th and America on the 25th because the world really is just too big for him to get to everyone in one night. But apparently he has enough time on his hands to visit China on both nights! Not sure yet how to explain that one away. Fingers crossed that they don't notice that detail!

I'm really not sure who is having more fun this year, me or the kids! Did you celebrate St. Nikolaus Day this year?
Did he bring you an orange or a root?

Hope you are all enjoying what the season has to offer~

'Tis the Season...

Usually I wait until pretty close to Christmas to decorate the tree, as that was the tradition in our house when I was growing up. (When we were really little my parents would put the tree in the stand on Christmas Eve and decorate it after we had gone to bed so when we got up on Christmas morning it was as if Santa had decorated it for us!) But this year we will actually be away for much of December, returning right before Christmas so we decided to decorate early so that we can enjoy the tree some before we go away. 

The kids had a lot of fun putting the ornaments on and did such a nice job. Conrad felt like a really big boy this year as he was allowed to climb the ladder and put ornaments on the upper part of the tree!

My OCD tendencies aside, I barely had to move any of the ornaments around to balance it all out. Truly, they did a nice job of evenly covering the branches. (Maybe they've inherited Mommy's eye for spatial relationships!)

Boys and trains...a quintessential Christmas combination! When Conrad was little a friend of mine recommended to put a train around the tree as the kids, especially boys, tend to play with the train and leave the tree alone. He still loves the train! (Now we just need to keep the dog away from the tree!)

Conrad was upset that we only had white lights on the tree. It's all I've ever had, either American or Chinese lights because that's my preference and, well, I'm the Mommy. Today  I bought him a set of colored lights and we strung them on the "other" tree in the room. He is happy now!

We're ready for Christmas. What color lights will you use?

We wish you all a joyous start to the Season. Happy Decorating!

All our love~

Buzzy Bee for Christmas

(Time for something a little more lighthearted after that last post...)

Life in Shanghai with 2 small children at home, as I may have mentioned once or twice (or 50 times), is a real challenge. Mining resources in a foreign country is never easy but with nearly every child over the age of 2 enrolled in school, resources for entertaining your little ones if you are outside of the conventional school system are very difficult to come by. Luckily for me I have come to know some pretty amazing women who have stepped forward to help fill the vacuum. Sarah, a teacher, and Miia, a graphic designer, both with children Vivienne's age, are the brains behind the recently unveiled Buzzy Bee box and we couldn't wait to get into ours after we picked it up today.

Thanksgiving has passed and we have begun to allow ourselves to look towards Christmas, the theme for this first box from Buzzy Bee. Each box will have 3 or 4 crafts, a book, some songs and a game surrounding a relevant theme; seven or eight activities in all. First we read "The Snowman", by Raymond Briggs. Then we sang Frosty the Snowman. And then sang it again. And again. (Once more for good measure?) We practiced some subtraction by reciting the poem "Five Little Snowmen Standing in a Line". Then we eagerly dug in to choose a craft. Conrad wanted to do the Christmas tree.

We donned our introductory gift aprons and started skewering foam balls on toothpicks and painting.


As they were drying we sprinkled them with magic golden fairy dust.

 We cut out the golden star for the top.

And we put it all together. 

Our first Christmas decorations of the year! We can't wait to do another project tomorrow. Thank you Miia and Sarah!!

A big hug to you as we begin the Christmas Season. Missing you all~

The Grittier Side of Living in China

Warning: the content of this post might be very distressing to some readers. 

Generally I keep the topics here very light as this is meant to be a memoir, my family's enjoyable account of our time in Shanghai. But the fact remains that this is China. I have been fortunate so far to avoid much of the unpleasantness that we often hear about the Chinese culture in contrast to our Western cultures but today one aspect of it fell on my head like a ton of bricks. Unfortunately it is very nearly outside my front door and we will probably not be able to completely escape it. 

Today I received this email through our neighborhood Google Group:

Hi neighbors,

I just want to make everyone aware that the 'new' chicken restaurant just outside the main gates {of our compound} are currently displaying what I believe are whole fried dogs.

Beth and I took a walk down there to double check this afternoon and we are pretty sure that is what the carcasses hanging on the rack outside the restaurant are.   I took a photo to show my Ayi and she agreed too.

As far as I am aware this is perfectly legal and the meat is considered a bit of delicacy.  Personally as an animal lover and dog owner, I obviously don't agree with it and I am only mentioning it in case you want to shield your children from seeing it.  I know my kids would be horrified.

Best wishes,

Kim

Life in China is always an adventure. Some days adventure simply means "we experienced some new, unusual and interesting things today. Perhaps we challenged our comfort zone". Today it is a euphemism for "Holy Christ, I'd rather have a sharp stick in the eye than go through that experience again." 

I think I will make it a practice to close my eyes from now on everytime we drive in and out of the front gate. The good news is that we usually come from the left side and the restaurant is on the right. I can only hope my children never get close enough to see it. 

Traditional Turkeys, with a Yummy Twist

All good American children, I told Conrad and Vivienne today, must know how to make a turkey from their hand for Thanskgiving. So Conrad gave it a great try. (Vivienne didn't want to try, so she colored my hand instead.)

Years ago I acquired a few hand-shaped cookie cutters (Thanks Moe!!) So continuing with the theme, we took it to the next level. First we made the dough.

Conrad did a great job breaking the eggs for his first time. I only had to pick out 2 tiny pieces of shell.

Then we rolled it out.

Cut, cut, cut!

We need to perfect the paint recipe but we had fun decorating them.

Fresh out of the oven!

Enjoying the finshed product after our dinner of Bubba's Brisket and green bean casserole. If you do something two years in a row, does that make it a tradition? No Dr. Pepper this year, though. (Sad face)

 

I so badly wanted to watch the Parade this year but it doesn't start until 10 p.m. our time. That's way past my bed time these days! So maybe we will watch SkyFall instead. Yes, it's not even in the theaters here yet, a friend of mine told me the release is being delayed so as not to detract from some local films, but you can buy a blackmarket copy DVD on the street for 5 RMB, about 80 cents! I could not resist. It will cost us about 150 RMB to see it in a theater here. Chances are the quality will leave a bit to be desired, as if someone filmed it on their phone in a theater in another country and then loaded it onto DVD but it was worth a try. Who wants to come watch it with us? You can have a turkey cookie...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! What did your turkeys look like? Hope you all had a wonderful day~

“Laterne, Laterne, Sonne, Mond und Sterne…”

On Wednesdays Conrad and Vivienne attend a German playgroup with some other Multicultural families that we know. Like in any other playgroup, typically the kids listen to some stories in German, sing some songs in German and do a craft relative to the time of year or upcoming German holidays. The focus of our most recent craft has been Martinstag, or the Feast of St. Martin.

Taken from Suite101.com:
St. Martin's Day and the Feast of Lanterns

The first canonized saint not associated with martyrdom, Martin of Tours left a legacy celebrated by children's lantern parades throughout Germany since the Middle Ages. The tradition of children walking through German cities with lighted lanterns on the eve of St. Martin’s feast day (November 11), is traced to the early Middle Ages. Celebration of St. Martin’s was revived significantly in the 15th Century, perhaps accounting for the 16th Century parallels been St. Martin and the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther. Luther mythology also helps to explain why the often called “lantern festival” became popular in North Germany, which was predominantly Protestant.

Lanterns and “Laternen Lieder”

Laternen lieder are lantern songs. Throughout Germany the winter feast of St. Martin’s finds children and parents making lanterns to carry through the streets at night in large groups called “trains.” This lantern train associates light during the autumnal festival with Martin of Tours. One of the songs begins, “Holy Saint Martin was a good man; he gave the children candles and lit them by his own hand.” The Catholic nature of the festival was kept by Northern Protestants and the cause is again attributed to Martin Luther. While in Nordhausen, Luther lit candles on St. Martin’s Day and put them in the windows.

One popular lantern song is called, “A Beggar sat in the Cold Snow,” and tells the story of St. Martin’s generosity. Most lantern songs – lieder, are more secular in nature, comparing the lantern’s light to the stars and the moon. Perhaps the most popular children’s song begins, “lantern, lantern, Sun and Moon and Stars.” (Thus the title of this piece, as this song has become a favorite for Vivienne and Conrad.)

The lantern festival is often compared to American Halloween which comes ten days earlier. Like at Halloween, children often receive sweets and tiny pastries from people watching the parade of lanterns and hearing the many lantern songs. At least one German writer has pointed out that while American Halloween is highly commercial, St. Martin’s celebrations still point to a non-commercial message tied to giving to the poor.

To make our lanterns we used papier mache on ballons. Unfortunately neither one of my children particularly liked the feel of the wallpaper paste so neither would actually make their own lanters! Gotta love playgroup projects! So I sucked it up and made 2. It was a multi-week project as we had to allow time for them to dry, time to decorate them and then plan for an evening when we could all get together after dark and have our own lantern "train". Truly it was worth the work because the lanterns turned out beautifully and we had a very nice time walking around after dark, singing our songs and enjoying our lanterns.

Next stop was Daddy's office so we made another train.

Happy fish lanterns for a Happy St. Martin's Day!

Earlier this week we attended a friend's birthday party with a superhero theme. So Conrad revived his Halloween costume to dress as Spiderman, his favorite Superhero, and luckily for Vivienne we have an older costume that fit her too. 

The Spidey's played pass-the-parcel

and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. (Conrad won both games!)

Everyone got a stick-on moustache in their party goodie bags!

Which is great but not nearly as much fun as a chocolate moustache from a donut at Dunkin Donuts!

(Does it seem like we are at Dunking Donuts all the time? I swear we aren't!)

Last week I took advantage of an MNO (Mom's Night Out) at a friend's house so Daddy stayed home with the kiddos. When I got home, quite late by my standards, I found the boys playing racing games on the iPad

And Vivienne, well, apparently she fell asleep doing her Superman impression. 

Leave 'em where they lay!

I wonder if next week will be as exciting?

A Lovely Autumn Day in Gongqing Forest Park

The days are getting shorter, and definitely colder. Earlier this week my friend called me and asked if we would like to join she and the boys for one last afternoon outing at one of our favorite parks, before the weather turns disagreeable for the duration.

Gongqing Forest Park is about 25 minutes' drive northwest of us, just on the other side of the HuangPu where it heads north to meet the Yangtze. 324 acres of trees and green space, it is labeled in reviews as "a nice patch of green in the city". Truly it is a refreshing bit of nature in the otherwise endless sprawl that is the concrete jungle of Shanghai. We've been there often for a number of the attractions found there. They have a small amusement park, some go-Karts, a loop-de-loop rollercoaster (that I would never get on or allow my kids to ride!) a climbing wall, pony rides, a little ride-on train and a small children's play area. Yesterday we were intent on enjoying the newly renovated and very well done climbing/adventure park. The weather was beautiful so we all enjoyed it, and the kids got some great exercise.

Conrad gives Vivi a ride on the zip line.

Vivi returns the favor.

Eddie's turn!

 Then Vivi is on to the big tunnel.

With help from the signage we all managed to stay safe around the water zone.

 We finished the day with a lovely ride on the carousel.

Last time we were at the carousel we were accosted by a strange smell. We finally identified it as the frog skins that the park workers were frying on a small fire nearby. Sorry I missed getting pictures of that one!

Eventually our adoring fans caught up to us

And then they got really bold and picked Vivi right up. I decided to take this picture as a good visual for a discussion on the Chinese version of "Good Touch, Bad Touch": When can someone take your picture? More importantly, are they allowed to pick you up?

On a more entertaining note, check out the pink bunny ears on the one chick's phone. You see them everywhere here!

Aside from the creepiness with the chicks picking Vivi up, which they often have no qualms about trying to do until told to back off, we had a very nice autumn afternoon.

Good bye Gongqing Park! See you in the Spring!