Merry Christmas
Like I promized Liza, here’s the picture I chose for my Christmas cards this year. I don’t usually write them in German, but those icicles were just so perfect. I’m sure you can guess what “Fröhliche Weihnachten” means!
Christmas always makes me a little childish, and I have to listen to songs that I’m about fifteen years too old for, songs that I found on an old cassette tape a few years ago, songs that I listened to so often as a child that I still could sing along, songs that are silly and yet, in my opinion anyway, not nearly as stupid as many newer childrens’ songs.
I did my best to translate the lyrics… much of it sounds terribly clunky in English, though.
Santa Claus is not awake yet,
he’s peacefully snoring into the day.
But then the alarm clock rings, and the cow screams
and the reindeers scratch and snort.
Ratatam-ratatam-ratatamtam-ding, ding-dong-ding-dong-dingelingeling, ratatam-ratatam-ratatamtam-ding, ding-dong-ding-dong-dingelingeling
Santa Claus jumps out of bed
because he nearly overslept.
He runs to the kitchen and takes a gulp
of the wonderfully smelling coffee substitute.
Ratatam…
He calls his reindeer, he needs to leave quickly,
only one did not move at all.
He growled, “Now come on, the children are waiting,
They’re going to get toys of all kinds.”
Ratatam…
The reindeer looked at the world
as if it didn’t like it there at all.
Santa Claus scolded, “Don’t you understand me?”
Then it said, very quietly, “And what will I get?”
Ratatam…
It wasn’t until this year that this song started to make me think of all the people who have to work on Christmas… Silly as they are, this guy’s songs often have a message hidden in them…
Anyway, I’ve got to head off to join my family – and sssshhh, nobody tell the Carpenter Brother that there are pictures of him in that video!
Letters & Leaves 
Merry Christmas! And enjoy the holidays!
I’m with family too. While singing all the traditional songs yesterday, I realized I remember the lyrics better than they do…
I kind of miss singing carols… we gave that up years ago, because nobody but my mother and me ever wanted to sing. But at least I had my silly Fredrik Vahle songs to sing along to (I even found the cassette tape yesterday, with two songs that I’d missed when converting it to a CD.)
Ah, I see. We’ve kids who want to sing and then it all ends in laughter.
Christmas is just so much more fun with kids!
I love that card, Ivy! Thanks so much for letting me see. It’s a great shot.
It wasn’t easy to get a good picture, but it was certainly worth the half-frozen fingers!