St Martins Day (Nov 10th) is a big day in the lead up to Christmas here in Germany. It remembers St Martin who cut his cloak in half in the middle of winter to share it with a beggar. The children celebrate by making a lantern and then doing a singing procession through the streets, ending with a treat in the form of the sweetdough man I showed in the last post.
This year we decided to do two of these processions:
One with the playgroup which was unfortunately washed out hence we are sitting around a table to enjoy the dough men (in this case it was sugar pretzels). Yuo can however see some examples of the wonderfully crafted lanterns some other moms brought with.
The second was with JS and her daughter around their neighbourhood. This was fantastic as they even had a mounted "St Martin" and brass band to lead the procession. At the end of the walk they also had a bonfire to warm ourselves up on while we enjoyed the refreshments. It was just a pity it had been raining so hard that we had to cross a bog to reach the bonfire. The poor girls landed up getting stripped off before they were allowed anywhere near the car afterwards!
Sorry that the shot is a bit out of focus it was the only shot that halfway came out from that evening. You can see the girls handprint lanterns that we crafted in the playgroup though.
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