Monday, January 22, 2007

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum


My one main goal this week, in between these 2 Hannover trips, is to put away all my Christmas decorations. That mainly means detrimming 2 artificial trees.

One day this last Hannover trip I passed landlord Wolfgang going down the apartment stairs with his tannebaum wrapped up in a blanklet. I wondered where he was taking it.

Shortly thereafter on walks, I found out! On corners all over Hannover are stacked-up tannenbaums ready to be hauled off to christmas-tree heaven. I'm guessing the residents have been told the cut-off date and 'spect they'll all be gone when we return on the 30th?





O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
You give us so much pleasure!
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
You give us so much pleasure!
How oft at Christmas tide the sight,
O green fir tree, gives us delight!
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
You give us so much pleasure!

9 comments:

  1. Yes, they have a tree pick-up service and the dates are posted in the newspaper. On Jan 30th it's our turn to put the ex-Tannenbaum out on the curb.

    (You'll be back in Hannover so quickly you won't even have time to get jet lag!)

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  2. Same goes for Switzerland. I was surprised, however, to see that in the Munich area, many homes still had their Christmas decorations/lights up.

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  3. Christina: I figured there was a posting somewhere and then maybe word of mouth. It sounds like a good system. Here in Atlanta, you have to take your tree to a place like Home Depot for disposal. In fact, we took Amy's in Donica's truck just before we flew the coop our last trip, Jan. 6th.

    That's the plan--to fool Mother Nature into not getting jet lag this time. :)

    CS: Honestly, I'm a "leave your tree up as long as possible" kind of person, so I'd like that. I figure that it takes time to do all that trimming, so enjoy it for as long as you can. Having them down before Valentine's Day seems a logical goal. Nothing superstitious about me. :)

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  4. LOL! Yes, Ginnie, but only if it's not a real tree. Otherwise, you might have nothing but a skeleton "under" the ornaments and a rug of needles left by Valentines day.

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  5. LOL - I'm laughing too! We have the same type of service here too. It's usually a a set place where you go and then the trees get shredded up into wood mulch.

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  6. CS: HA! We used to ALWAYS have a real tree, but at one point a few years back we decided to go the artificial route. Now that we travel like we do, it's a good thing!

    ET: I wish we had MORE drop-off points here in Atlanta. In Hannover, you can walk your tree a couple of blocks down the street. It's a real service to the community.

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  7. There are so many different variations of words for that song - maybe because the lyrics are translated from the original version? It's interesting, and a virtual nightmare for a sing-along:) I prefer the Charlie Brown version, myself!

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  8. I leave my Christmas decoration out year round. :) But I only have a couple pieces.

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  9. RRD: You can imagine how hard it was to find the one verse out of the million to choose for this post. HA! I'll have to check out the Charlie Brown version.

    Tim: There you go. A man after my own heart. :)

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