It's December--let the holidays begin!

Long day today. I woke up early (now that my kids always want to get up early, I find myself waking up then, too). I still haven't figured out how to sneak my laptop out of the room to write without waking up the kids, though. No matter what I do, they hear me.

Anyhow, I spent the day with the teenagers I work with. I was in charge of baking a zillion cookies with a group of 12- and 13-year-olds, and then we had lunch with them and the older teens, and then they put together artistic presentations and performed them/showed them. (Dance, music, painting, poetry, theater). Considering the fact that they don't all speak the same language, it worked out well. Working with this group is extremely time consuming, and sometimes I wonder if I can really do it, but once I'm there it's really fun. In my mind I think I'm still sixteen. (It does, however, help to actually be an adult. You can see elements of people you might overlook if you were still a teen because by now you've had enough life experience to recognize the person behind the facade they're presenting.)

Then I took a short walk through town on the way home, and all the Christmas lights were on, and the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) has opened, and free carriage rides were going on, and South American flute players were playing Andean music down the street from central European accordion players, and people were shopping, and it was all very celebratory. If you want to celebrate Christmas in all its glory, come to Germany!