As Christmas approached, Basel’s open public spaces filled with bundled christmas trees. The salesmen had long measuring poles upon which the prices for trees of various heights were listed. We bought a specially designed stand and Mark embarked on his first ever christmas tree purchase. The man on Petersplatz was amazed to learn that his customer had never had a real tree for christmas before (plastic ones being the norm in Sydney), and helpfully gave advice on the features of the three species on offer, the best technique for carrying it, and how to dispose of it (the local council makes a special collection round early in the new year, carting away close to one tree per household from the entire city). Mark followed the advice and ended up with what were really only minor scratches to his forearm; although one does wonder about the hospitalisation rates arising from christmas tree injuries.

Despite moving into our new address just three weeks before Christmas, a few friends and family managed to send us cards and gifts, which was a delightful surprise. The tree was duly decorated (with a Die Sendung mit der Maus motif, as can be seen at right), the gifts were placed beneath it, and, to complete the picture, enough snow fell to cover the ground, at least briefly.

The weekend before Christmas, we were invited to a fondue and games night by a local living in Rheinfelden. This is about 20km up river from Basel, and since Mark’s father had borrowed the car to drive to Austria, we used Mobility, the Swiss car-sharing scheme, to get there. With two small kids, this is somewhat involved: the car must be collected from its parking spot and brought home to have car seats installed, and the same procedure needs to be reversed afterwards. Everything went smoothly, with the boys going to sleep in the guest room part-way through the party, and dozing off in the car on the way home. But in the rush to get them into their beds without too much rousing, we forgot to take out the car seats. It wasn’t until shortly before midnight, as Mark locked the car at the parking spot and was about to mount his bike for the ride home, that he noticed the two car seats still in the car. Since the seats are too heavy to carry together, he had to call Mobility and rebook the car for an additional half-hour.

Meantime, Mark’s father collected Mark’s sister Susie, and her friend Alexandra, from Leogang in Austria, and then drove up to Ludwigsburg for Christmas lunch at Marion’s parents’ house. We used another Mobility car to join them there. With Marion’s brother and sister-in-law, plus their children, the total number of guests was 12. So naturally there were enough presents changing hands to slow Santa’s sleigh to a crawl. Wiki and Loxon, fresh from a round of unwrapping at home, began to forget that not getting presents was the normal state of affairs.

For the first time in nine years of living together, we didn’t throw a New Years Eve party; in fact, we went to bed at around 9pm. We were awoken by the sound of distant bells shortly before midnight, mostly because Loxon was complaining about them (his hearing is much better than ours). After they ceased, we resettled Loxon, and Mark was on his way back to bed at around 12:30am when the fireworks began. They were hard to miss because one of the launch platforms was on the river bank directly opposite our apartment. It turns out that the Basel cathedral holds a special mass shortly after midnight on New Year’s Eve, which is why the bells had come and gone, and why the fireworks didn’t start until 30 minutes into the New Year — the religious service gets precedence over the privately funded pyrotechnics.

Although some heavy snowfalls had passed through Basel, our proximity to the warming influence of the river meant that there was never enough to build anything approaching a snowman. Having promised the boys there would be one, we drove out of Basel on New Year’s Day and up into the hills. The small town of Gempen nestles at the crest of a pass some 10km south and it had a couple of inches of snow on the ground, which, with a bit of scrounging, we managed to turn into a snowman — well a snow dwarf anyway. The boys thus satisfied, we headed home again.

The following weekend was Cousin Lea’s birthday, so we drove up to Mannheim for the celebration. Since Marion’s sister had spent Christmas with her in-laws, there were even more Christmas presents for Loxon and Wiki, confirming that normal life indeed consisted primarily of receiving gifts. It took at least another two weeks for this expectation to wear down, before Aunty Marina turned up to perpetuate the myth. But describing that can wait until the next post.