I’m a couple of days late, but here is a christmassy poem I need to post:
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
Our God, heaven cannot hold Him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ…. (for full text click here)
Just in time for Christmas my tiny German LibriVox Solo is finished and ready for listening. Yay! 😀
The book is called “Weihnachtsmärchen für Kinder” by Luise Büchner (translated the title of the book means “Christmas stories for children”). As the title already suggests, the book consists of 9 fairy tales all centered around Christmas. The stories are all connected in one way or another by a frame story, in which a loving aunt tells them to her small niece and nephew – Mathilde and Georg – to shorten the time till the Christ Child finally comes.
Luise Büchner
»Liebe Tante,« sagte eines Abends, grade acht Tage vor Weihnachten, die kleine Mathilde, »du erzählst mir immer von dem Christkindchen, aber gar nichts von seiner Mama. Sage mir doch, wer sie gewesen ist und wo sie gewohnt hat.« »Nun, wenn du hübsch ruhig sitzen und zuhören willst und der Georg auch, dann will ich euch alles erzählen, was ich von dem Christkindchen, von seiner Mama, dem Knecht Nikolaus und dem Eselchen weiß.« (Zusammenfassung von zeno.org)
As I’ve already posted my reading the preface, here is my reading of the first chapter :
It’s a sweet little book with really cute stories and I enjoyed reading them. The only thing I found a bit strange – spoiler ahead – is that the Nikolaus is made out to be be the one who punishes bad children and also that he travels with the Christ Child. Oh and in some of the stories there is almost a bit too much morale, but apart from that the stories are very cute and fun to read.
We finally got some real proper snow. Yay! It even had the perfect consistancy – wet, but not too much and just the perfect kind of sticky – for building a snowman. As y’all can imagine I just couldn’t resist temptation and so may I proudly present Mr. Snow 2012 to you. 😉
Mr Snow 2012
Isn’t he a beauty? Unfortunately he had to borrow Mrs. Snow’s hat and as if that hadn’t been enough he had a slight accident later that very day… if I may add, not due to sloppy construction of course. 😉
Soooo, after some “slight” repairs may I present the New Mr. Snow to you all:
New Mr. Snow 2012 😉
Oh and here is proof that our cat actually ventures outside occasionally in winter.
I’m a day late in posting, but like last year there is a wonderful brand- new LibriVox Adventskalender full of German short stories, poems, song texts, fairy tales, etc. All stories are centered around Christmas, snow, the Christkind, winter itself and everything even remotely related to it.
Here is one of the poems I read for the collection. It’s called Weihnacht by Ernst von Wildenbruch:
Die Welt wird kalt, die Welt wird stumm,
der Winter-Tod zieht schweigend um;
er zieht das Leilach weiß und dicht
der Erde übers Angesicht –
Schlafe – schlafe
Du breitgewölbte Erdenbrust,
du Stätte aller Lebenslust,
hast Duft genug im Lenz gesprüht,
im Sommer heiß genug geglüht,
nun komme ich, nun bist du mein,
gefesselt nun im engen Schrein –
Schlafe – schlafe…..
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