It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas in Germany

Emiko is an American student studying in Germany as part of the CBYX (Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange) scholarship exchange program. 

At long last, the snow has arrived here in Bavaria.

I woke to a window painted with frost that fogged as I leaned against it, staring into the blurring white of a world mid-transformation. Snowflakes drifted down from the dark sky in thick, deliberate spirals, slowly piling onto my windowsill. I dragged my finger through it, tracing the first thing that came to my mind into the snow – a smile.

As our town transformed into a painting of a Weihnachtsmarkt, the rooftops disappeared first, swallowed beneath a growing layer of crystalline frost. Terracotta chimneys donned white hats, and the sharp edges of the houses slowly softened into something that looked more storybook. In the dark of the morning, streetlights cast warm halos that caught the falling snow, turning each flake that drifted by into a glowing ember. Chin to the sky, I let the snowflakes catch my eyelashes and land in my hair. The brisk morning air turned the tip of my nose red and blushed my cheeks, but it was simply a welcome accompaniment to the white flecks speckled throughout my hair.

Though still November, colored lights lined fences and adorned trees, casting a warm glow over our neighborhood. Traditional straw stars were illuminated by candlelight, shining from windowsills and peering down into the quiet streets. Soon, Christmas trees will smile from living rooms and wave to the wintry world, greeting the holiday season as it settles upon our little town.

The beech trees bowed under the weight of the snow; even without copious amounts of it, the snow here is wet and heavy, unlike Colorado’s familiar powder. It clings and gathers and melts in your palms, but if you’ve got gloves, it’s the perfect consistency to build a village of snow.

The morning of the first snow, I arrived at school and was greeted with a heartwarming sight: groups of kids and teenagers alike, building snowmen and miniature igloos and creating this frozen world right in the school courtyard. I was surrounded by snow angels and little statues, built in only a few minutes by a community that I’d only been a part of for three months, but that made me feel welcome from the very start.

By the end of the day, a thin line of smoke rose out of almost every chimney on the street. The light from the fires penetrated curtained windows and gave the dark a golden glow. The breeze blew the snow to its final resting place, but before it slept, each flake fluttered through the air and flickered in and out of sight until you could see it no longer. Even the shadows danced, stretching long and silver across the rooftops as if trying to touch the falling sky. Satin clouds settled over the horizon, blurring the outline of the moon. Though the stars weren’t peeking through the night sky, the iridescence of the snow became my nightlight and sent me gently to sleep.