Christmas Lights

If we were going to put up a tree this year, it was going to have to be an artificial one. Real trees have given David and James allergy-type symptoms in the past. We heard from many different people that you can find artificial trees here, no problem. Ha. I think David managed to find the only one being sold in all of Germany and that was after hitting several stores over the last few weeks.

We put the tree up this afternoon, in the German tradition of setting up Christmas trees just a few days before Christmas.

The homes we see here are decorated very modestly for Christmas. Some people put white lights in their windows, a few have strung some lights on their balconies, maybe a glowing deer in the yard, but by American standards, very simple.

So, when we heard about this "crazy" house in the town next to ours all decorated for Christmas, we had to see if for ourselves.Even we thought it was pretty wild. I have never seen so many moving Christmas figures in one place, and this picture only shows half the display. You can click on the picture to get a bigger view. Our favorite part was a Santa riding a bike back and forth on a tightrope.

The man who set it up did so with the intention of collecting charitable donations. The donations benefit a nearby children's clinic, coincidentally the same clinic where Rebecca ended up with her swollen eyelid. We made our donation, figuring what goes around comes around.