The Christmas Story... in German

So yesterday we drove to a small German village called Cochem. There is a castle in Cochem that we wanted to visit, and there were also some nice Christmas markets going on. As we drove along the Mosel river valley, surrounded on either side by sloping vineyards, the gray skies began to bring forth the most magical snow. Here are some pictures from the trip...

The castle in Cochem sits up on a hill above the city. It's surrounded on every side by vineyards... you can see the rows of vines in the picture :). The person who lived in the castle was probably not a king, but he definitely could have been the King of Wine, which is probably what they called him.

It just so happened that as we entered the castle for a tour, we discovered that the people of Cochem were having their "Christmas in the Castle" day... which means they have a live performance of the nativity story, complete with Mary and Joseph looking for rooms followed by their trusty donkey. Of course, it was all in German, but we pretty much knew how the story went.

The shepherds in the fields watching their flocks... there were live sheep too!

Here is the end of the story... Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and... um... Jesus' older sister sitting in front of the manger?

Here's a good shot of the courtyard of the castle. When the performance was over, they have a small market where you could get hot chocolate and the like.

The best part about the whole thing was that during the nativity, it started snowing again, which was simply wonderful :).

On a weird note, however, after the angel appeared to the shepherds, she came down from her perch and all the little kids went up to the angel and, we think, told her what they wanted for Christmas... then we all sang O Tannenbaum. I'm not sure if the angel worked for Santa, or if she's the one who is supposed to bring the presents... but we were a little confused.