Everyone celebrating Christmas knows the struggle. You do one thing on the days between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve: eating. No matter if it’s traditional stuff like roast, gravy and dumplings or more fancy dinners; it’s all about food.
Little helpers
Magazines, fitness tutorials and gyms seem to know exactly how everyone should lose the few extra kilograms after the Christmas holidays. But looking at those advertisements and instructions, it seems more like a torture. So, I thought of some fun ways to get your flat belly back without any kind of dieting or forcing yourself to a fitness marathon.
Sledging and aqua fit
Unfortunately, the most important thing for my first idea was missing until the beginning of January. I can hardly remember a white Christmas. In the last few years, there wasn’t even a single snowflake during the Christmas holidays and without snow there is no chance to go sledging. We’re lucky, because we’ve got some snow now, so you could go out, get your old sledge out of the cellar or the attic, run up the next hill or mountain and enjoy coming down. It’s as much fun for adults as for children and walking back up will shed the extra pounds you gained from too many biscuits.
You may have seen following sport once in an indoor swimming pool, but I guess you were too ashamed to participate. Personally, I had also been embarrassed to do aqua sports for years until a friend of mine – under the age of 30 – dragged me along to a lesson in my local swimming pool. Surprisingly, it was a lot of fun and it turned out to be very effective: I woke up the next day with sore muscles. The coach chose cool music and the movements got more and more difficult. So, next time you’re in a public swimming pool and they offer aqua courses, give it a try – you won’t regret it.
Icy conditions
I discovered this new way of losing weight after Boxing Day. My nephews and I were stuffed with delicious food cooked by my mother and we were longing for fresh air and a bit of exercise. We took our table tennis bats and went out to the public table for a game. It had been rainy and chilly the whole day and the table was icy in some places, but we didn’t mind and started our first round. Whenever the ball hit the icy spots it glided uncontrollably in an unexpected direction. This made our match more fun. Don’t be afraid of an icy ping-pong table – if the ground is solid you’ll have an arduous game.
You can discover many more funny ways of losing weight. This was just my small contribution and if you’re too lazy to start right away, there’s plenty of time left to lose the extra kilograms by the summer holidays.
Author & Pictures: Marlene Hupfer
2016 – What a year, right!? Only one day left until we start into 2017, and I hope you’ll all have a wonderful and sparkling New Year’s Eve and ring in 2017 as is right and proper! But before that, let us just do a very quick review of what happened in the last almost 366 (yes, it’s a leap year) days.
Satirist Jan Böhmermann presented a scandalous poem about the Turkish President Erdoğan. In Germany, the right-wing party AfD has had more and more success, in Turkey an attempted coup d’état, carried out by a group of the Turkish military, failed. Fidel Castro, Leonard Cohen, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Bud Spencer, Prince, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Muhammad Ali, Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, Ilse Aichinger, Schimon Peres, Peter Lustig, Max Mannheimer, Götz George, Roger Cicero, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Guido Westerwelle, George Michael and Carrie Fisher died. Jo Cox, a British Labour Party member, was murdered and in the fight for Aleppo thousands of people suffered from war and isolation. In Syria, Brussels, Munich, Ansbach, Nice, Orlando, Rouen, Berlin and in a German train people thought their destiny was to hurt or kill people. Those are just a few examples of death and destruction; things that happen every day somewhere in the world, but often go unnoticed if they don’t really affect us or our loved ones.
When visiting California, USA, there are a lot of different things to see that come to mind. Whether it’s San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge, the Victorian Houses and Pier 39, Los Angeles with its famous Sunset Blvd., Beverly Hills and Hollywood, Monterey with its great Monterey Bay Aquarium and Whale Watching Tours or national parks like Yosemite or fun parks like Disneyland, these sights are all well known and you already know about these tourist magnets I’m sure. But what you mightn’t already have heard of is “Christmas in the Park”, which takes place every year for about five weeks in San Jose.
hundred decorated Christmas trees on display in the park, which is located in Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park in Downtown San Jose. The trees are decorated with different kinds of ornaments by school classes, kindergarten classes, local companies and community organizations. Every tree is very unique and shines with all its really individual embellishments. In addition to firs, you’ll find a set of displays that are set up lovingly. There are, for example, elf woodcrafters, a candy store, a Little Swiss Clockmaker’s Shoppe, a melting snowman and let’s not forget Santa’s booth. Of course, there are also vendors – food or other merchandise – so everyone will find a way to spend money, if they want to.
Obviously, Christmas in the park is a well-designed family venue, as it offers a lot for kids to discover. They’re bound to love the fact that Santa’s actually sitting there in his booth and they can tell him about their dearest wishes for Christmas, while their parents are taking snapshots. For those who prefer to have professional photos, there’s even a photographer. The quality pictures can be picked up a few minutes later. But not only are the youngest among us bound to enjoy the decorated park. The festive trees might also give adults some new ideas for trimming their own tree at home – or they can simply enjoy the park.
What I really liked during my visit was the special atmosphere. You can walk around the park with all the nicely-decorated trees and the other festive displays. It can’t be compared to a “Christkindlesmarkt” that we’ve been very familiar since we were small. While you’re surrounded by the holiday glitter, you se e the large palm trees in the Californian setting, which gives you a unusual kind of experience, especially if this is the first time you’ve spent the holiday season away from the usual “Let’s hope there’s snow at Christmas” thinking. Don’t hope for snow in San Jose because, you know, it’s not gonna happen.
The spirit of Thanksgiving has endured throughout the years and has made it one of the most important holidays in the USA.
Slowly but surely the house fills; family first, to help with cleaning up and laying the table and then the friends arrive around five o’clock. Everybody mingles. The whole house smells amazing. We’re all starving since we haven’t eaten much during the day in order to have enough space in our stomachs for the feast. Finally we gather around the beautifully laid-out dinner table and say grace.
Having eaten far too much, we start emptying the table, put the leftovers in containers to go, and pick off the last pieces of the turkey meat for turkey sandwiches the next day. Before we get ready for the sweet finale, we retell the story of the first Thanksgiving or we take a moment and write down what we are thankful for. Then it is time to enjoy the pies.
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I was very homesick when I first started traveling on my own, but I became more independent with every journey and now, I’m braver than ever before. This includes approaching strangers for advice, relying on my intuition in situations where I feel lost and as well taking risks sometimes! While I was freaking out about all the possible dangers awaiting me in an unknown country a few years ago, I realized that things always figure themselves out somehow and I’ve always returned home safely.