Christmas Eve, an antique Christmas tree stand, and Gary's sculpture project

Merry Christmas! 

Before heading out on Christmas Eve, Gary and our landlord/friend Peter obliged my wish to attend the Christmas Eve service at my favorite cathedral, Jakobikirke, a couple blocks away. Here's one of the pieces the choir sang (part of it, anyway -- excuse the shaky video; I was trying to be discreet):

*SIGH*!!! The service was gorgeous, as I knew it would be. That was all I wanted for Christmas.

Afterward Peter drove us the half hour to his partner Maren's house, where we four had a nice light dinner of a grated potato dish and a wonderful beet salad that Peter made (cooked beets & potatoes & celeriac with herring and plain yogurt as a binder; definitely going into my recipe file). It was the perfect way to celebrate Christmas -- peacefully and beautifully.

Today (Christmas Day) on the way back to Lübeck, we visited the home of one of Peter's friends, Martin, who is renovating (along with his wife, Elke) this grand combination house/barn:

You can't see it well here, but the huge roof is thickly thatched. Here is Peter with Elke & her son, who is generously loaning me his violin while we're here.

Martin explaining some of the work going on in the barn half of the house. You can see the old timber framing behind him.

On the second floor of the house half: the future master bedroom, with a view of the lake

It's an impressive, long-term project; it took Martin and Elke two years just to clean things up at the home site before they were finally able to start the "fun" part of renovation, four years ago.

During our visit, their antique Christmas tree stand caught my eye, and Martin gave us a demonstration. It's a music box, from the 1880s! Absolutely charming. We've never seen anything like it.

Martin changes the music box disc to a different tune. They have about a dozen of these old disks to choose from.

And now, the afternoon of Christmas Day, we're back in our flat again! This week I'll be continuing with my illustration "work," and Gary is already well into his first sculpture (this is no one in particular, just a study). Whenever I walk past the kitchen now, I do a double-take, and I think you can see why!