Five Favorites: My Christmas Presents!

Well, the holiday season has come and gone and I have finally gotten around to actually enjoying the wonderful gifts that were waiting under the tree! I know people usually post about gifts before the holidays  when the recommendations could actually help someone out. I personally am a great fan of Cup of Jo's Gift Guides, especially this bike bell with fun sound effects which I plan to get my sister Zelda for her birthday (to the eternal disservice of all pedestrians on the streets of Rotterdam). However, being more talented at the gift-receiving portion of the festivities, I thought I'd share my favorites now, in great gratitude to the givers and in the hope they may help you if you ever find yourself in need of present ideas for a twenty-two year old medical student who likes to cook, read, travel, and get gifts.


1. Cartoon-a-day, Medical Edition. Super funny and almost always right on the money. So many of these daily cartoons put a  hilarious spin on situations I experience with patients almost every day. Others are just cool in their random ridiculousness. These exist for lawyers, teachers, and several other professions as well, so whatever your loved one does from nine to five, this is a fun and easy way to brighten their workday.

 2. Citrus press. 
It seems Karl's Mom is attempting to increase our Vitamin C intake! No, in all seriousness, this was one of the sweetest presents we got. A couple months ago, we were having breakfast at my boyfriend's parents' house and I commented that their orange juice was just delicious. It turns out they fresh press oranges every morning with this easy machine.  I always thought juicers were complicated and messy and impossible to effectively clean so I was overjoyed with this thoughtful gift. It's easy to use (even for technologically challenged me) and rinses out in ten seconds flat. Plus you feel fancy having fresh juice for breakfast on a weekday.

Pilgrimage by Annie Leibovitz

3. Pilgrimage by Annie Leibovitz. This is a wonderful gift from my mother which I will treasure forever. It's a beautiful book, a pleasure to leaf through-- and its biographical essence adds profundity to its aesthetic character.  Leibovitz photographs places she visited on her own account, not on assignment, connected to people that interest or inspire her. She travels from Thoreau's Walden Pond to Old Faithful to Monticello, following the footsteps and stories of Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Georgia O'Keeffe, Annie Oakley and Ansel Adams among many others. She captures Virgina Woolf's writing desk and Sigmund Freud's couch, seamlessly connecting the banal beauty of the physical object and the enormous significance attached to it.  Liebovitz herself said of the project, "...it was an exercise in renewal. It taught me to see again." Believe me, once you buy this book you'll also start to see in a whole new way.

4. Awesome Pencil Sharpener Carrot Peeler. Adorable. 'Nough said.

5. You Come Too, by Robert Frost. This was a gift from Papa, who shares my poetic soul. A great find for all Frost fans, this is a collection of his poems selected and curated by the poet himself.  My favorite has always been "Acquainted with the Night" but I've been reading a poem before bed every evening and loved yesterday's ("The Birthplace"), he so eloquently evokes a sense of cozy homes and carefree childhoods. It's great to explore and be exposed to more work by one of my favorite authors. 

What was the best gift you got this year?! I'd love to hear your favorites!

Look up at the Sky!

-Zanna


PS. Five Things No One Knows About Me

PPS. More "Five Favorites" here, here, and here. 

A belated post on our Merry Little Christmas

My parents smooching in front of the tree at Hackische Höfe

I return to by little blog project after a longish break due to the internet limitations of travel. But more on that later.  First, a look back to the holiday season!

I love coming home any time of the year, but coming home for Christmas is particularly special. Seeing all the decorations I've grown up with, chipped and worn as they're hauled out year after year, the recipes that make the house smell like cinnamon and the sound of scissors on wrapping paper from behind closed doors...its just so warm and happy. I think most young adults feel the same, snuggley and safe, when surrounded by the traditions that mean we're home. 

The part of the holiday season I love most is the onslaught of family and friends descending on Berlin from various continents and manifold adventures to freeze our butts off and exchange love and news. One highlight was seeing Clara, my best friend from high-school. She lives in Scotland and although we text and skype regularly there's really nothing like sitting down for a meal together with good friends. We also got a visit from Sam,  a childhood friend from when my family was living in NYC. He and his girlfriend came to tourist around Berlin and even though we hadn't seen each other since we were both eleven, Zelda (my sis) and I had so much fun with both of them. Its funny how little we grow up. Sam is exactly the same at 22 as he was at 11, plus some facial hair and a salary. You'd think that two kids who grew up together would meet much later and reconnect as adults but what actually happens is we meet up and just regress back to being kids. We made chocolate chip cookies and consumed about half the dough, ran around town and giggled in supermarkets, and there was even an intense and prolonged discussion on monopoly strategy. It was great to see him again, and to meet his lovely girlfriend as well!

Xmas Dinner: goose, knödel, sauerkraut and rosenkohl!

For Christmas itself we always drive to my grandmothers house a few hours north of here. We had fun on the way there singing along to all the songs on the radio in a horribly off-tune chorus and on the way back we had a huge three hour family fight, everyone yelled at everyone and we achieved catharsis by the time we arrived at our front door. Ah, such is family. 

Our Christmas Tree! (Yes, with real candles, as per tradition!)

Look up at the Sky!

--Zanna

Five Favorites: DIY Holiday Cards

I'm all done with exams and finally made it to the post office to drop off good wishes to friends and family near and far. Usually I send store bought cards with a photo or whip something up with an easy online template. But not this year! This year I sat down with Karl, my roommate Sophie and her boyfriend Pete and we just crafted our incompetent little hearts out. The good thing is, some very talented DIYers have posted wonderfully simple instructions online and with their help and a few ideas of our own, we were on our way. All our cards were super easy to make, just add the holiday greeting of your choice and drop it in the mail! Here are my favorite five:

Number One

Number Three

Number Two

Number Five

Number Four

Number Five was Pete's very ingenious solution to all the bits and pieces we had at the end of the evening. I actually think the leftover-scraps-card became my favorite one!

 Look up at the Sky!

--Zanna

Pre-Gaming Christmas

Karl's family is so extensive that they don't get together for Christmas itself, because it's just so chaotic for everyone to travel to one place for the holiday. Instead, they have a wonderful tradition of picking a weekend in December that works for all the families and having a big pre-Christmas bash with everyone there.

 Karl's inexhaustible Aunt Greta hosts it, everyone exchanges gifts and coos over the new additions, and we all eat an amount of delicious dishes that defies the anatomy of the digestive system. Then, we all fall into bed like the gluttonous dead weights we are and wake again for a sumptuous brunch on Sunday morning which renders all easting unnecessary for the rest of the week. Seriously, Greta's brunches are legendary and fill you up for days. She's also a prolific decorator and purveyor of kitch (see her epic Santa collection) which adds another layer of festivity to the whole event.

I've heard many horror stories of relations with in-laws and partner's families. Karl's is fabulous and all have welcomed me into the family with open arms. I'm so grateful for them and for our relationship. Karl's grandparent's are so sweet to me they're almost like my own and his cousins and their girlfriends (the whole youngest generation of that family is male) are more like friends to us than distant relatives. In fact, we girls had a great hair-dos-and-gabbing session during a break in the feasting.  Having family, whether your own or adopted is the greatest blessing in life. We had a wonderful weekend, got in the Christmas spirit, and left with a huge haul of presents! Happy pre-Christmas!

Look up at the Sky!

-Zanna

Five Favorites

So often I get bogged down in all the rainy old busyness of life and start counting my have-nots and my I-wishes more than my many blessings! So I'm going to try a nice easy gratefulness remedy half-lifted from one of my childhood favorites, The Sound of Music: a simple list of, say, five favorite things every Friday. 

Five Activities to Get Out of a Dead-of-Winter Funk 

1.) Take a long walk in the woods, alone or with a somebody. We did this a few weeks ago while visiting Karl's family and even though it was cold and crunchy instead of wintery and wonderland-y, I could just feel it doing me good! There's a lovely quote in one of the Sissi movies that goes: "Wenn du einmal im Leben Kummer und Sorgen hast, dann geh mit offenen Augen durch den Wald." Which roughly translates as: When you have stress and suffering in life, take a walk through the forest with open eyes." And I must say, corny as it is (and corny is pretty much the calling card of all the Sissi Movies) it holds true for me. Something about nature just gets me back on the right track!

2.) Make holiday cards for friends and family! I am not anywhere near as crafty as those amazing DIYers out there but even with our very limited skill set, Karl, Sophie, Pete and I enjoyed sitting down together earlier this week and throwing some glitter and yarn at colored paper. Makes you feel like a kid again and I think recipients appreciate the extra personal touch. (Stay tuned, I may work up the courage to show off our amateur handiwork)

3.) Bake cookies. Duh! Then eat all the dough and have to make a new batch.

4.) Listen to Christmas music...from somewhere else! Whether you discover a new favorite advent tune or have fun hearing familiar songs in  foreign tongues, this is definitely one to try. I love introducing non-native English speakers to Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire. It's not well know outside the US but I think it perfectly captures the Christmas spirit everywhere! I recommend trying Es ist ein Ros Entsprungen, a beautiful Marian Hymn from 1609 and I think of all languages Silent Night is most transporting in french: Douce Nuit, Sainte Nuit.

5.) Write it down! Since I started this blog as a way to keep myself accountable to a diary of sorts, this one is big for me. Have you're family write a one page Christmas journal to be sealed up until next year. Then, you can all open them and see what 2014 felt like in the moment, and what you're hopes for 2015 were. Then rinse and repeat! In a few years you'll have lots of letters to read through and a festive chronicle of the years going by. 

Hopefully I'll get through these favorite five in time for Christmas, or at least start smelling the roses more while trying.

Look up at the Sky!

-Zanna