Heilige Nacht

It’s Christmas Eve in Lübeck. After three days of rain, the sun came out today, and we spent the afternoon exploring, as usual. We explored a few "new" (to us) centuries-old streets, and stopped by the Weihnachtsmarkt downtown for some pumpkin soup, yet another tasse of gluhwein, and a waffeln mit vanillasosse. I don’t know why vanilla sauce isn’t more popular in the U.S., because nothing can’t be made even better with vanilla sauce on it. 

We always give our wild birds on the island an extra treat on Christmas Eve, but we’re far from them this year, so we brought along some stale  brochen and the last of the soul bread to feed to the ducks and seagulls by the canal, where we were very popular for a few minutes. 

We were back in our flat by mid afternoon, and at 3:00 sharp, the church bells started to ring. I opened our kitchen window and listened to the sound: big, deep bells, ringing all over town. Now, that is how to start Christmas Eve! At 4:30, we walked up a few narrow streets to the Gothic St. Jakobi church for the 5:00 service. The place was packed, and we were led by a kind usher to a seat in one of the little rooms off to the side, where we had a nice view of things. 

Jacobikirche was built between 1276 and 1334, and is known as the church of the seafarers. It survived WWII without damage, so the sanctuary looks just as it always has for the past 7 centuries.

Its two pipe organs, one built in 1466 and the other in 1504, are still used, and one of them — I don’t know which — was in full form tonight. Wow! As if all of this wasn’t enough, the music for the entire service was absolutely beautiful. If I could have created the perfect Christmas Eve service for myself, with all of my favorite German carols and a stunning church to hear them in, it couldn’t have possibly been better than this. I’ve never had a more beautiful start to Christmas Eve. (I posted a bit of it on Facebook, just fyi, as the video doesn't seem to want to work in this blog.)

After the service, we floated home, and heated up yet more gluhwein from the bottle our landlord/friend Peter gave us this morning. He made it himself, and it was very gut! 

Because every restaurant in town is closed tonight, as far as we know, we had dinner in our flat: baked cod with cream sauce, roasted kartoffeln with rosemary from Peter's garden, and red cabbage, with marzipan pigs from Niederegger (Lübeck's famous marzipan shop) for dessert. 

Yesterday I had bought some red tulips and pine boughs at this little flower market, and with that red and green bouquet, some candles on the table, and Gary's Macbook streaming Minnesota Public Radio's holiday songs, it was a great Christmas Eve! Frohe Weihnachten, everyone!