Happy New Years!

Last night, to ring in the new year of 2012, we spent a lovely evening with one of our daughters and her family. What I liked most about last night were the card games we played.

When I was little, we also played games while waiting for the new year, but our parents never played with us. We were banned into the kitchen, sitting around the kitchen table, while Mutti and Vati sat on the sofa in the living room. While our parents played chess, drank wine, and listened to the radio, we played cards around the kitchen table.

As time passed and only one hour was left, Mutti pulled the funnest game from a drawer: a set of tiny lead figures, a tin spoon and a small tin cup. I grabbed the cup and poured it half full of water, and Carmen found a candle in another drawer and lit it. Each of us picked one of the lead figures and we took turns melting them in the spoon over the candle. After the lead was melted, we poured it into the tin cup where it solidified almost instantly. Each of us spooned out our glob of tin and then we had lots of fun interpreting the shapes and what they might mean for the new year. Mutti and Vati stayed in the living room, listening and talking.

By the time we lost interest in our lead figures, the new year was almost upon us. For us children, Mutti opened the bottle of apple juice on the living room table, and for herself and Vati she opened the champagne and poured some for all of us. We children drank from old, chipped coffee cups, and Mutti und Vati had real glass glasses in which their champagne glittered in the light from the electric bulb overhead.

At the stroke of midnight we toasted to each other, hurriedly swallowed a few sips from our drink, and then hurried outside.

When we were younger, Vati only bought one or two pieces of fireworks for him and Mutti to set off, but as we grew and had a little more money, each child also received one small piece, like a sparkler or a firecracker.

Outside, we almost forgot to light our fireworks, because the sky was ablaze with fireworks all around us. Yellow, red, and green lights shot up into the sky and exploded above us in glittering glory. To top it off, the trains from the nearby train station blew their whistles. Through the popping noise of the fireworks and the whistling of the trains, the clear loud bells of surrounding churches and cathedrals joined into the celebration.

We stood in front of our caravan, hugging ourselves and hardly noticing the cold because of the glory surrounding us. Eventually Mutti returned to the caravan home and called us to come in too. As the firework noise diminished and the bells rang out their last tones, we undressed and fell into our cold beds, too tired and happy to shiver.