Animated short films are in the OSCAR spotlight. This year’s film nominees can be seen in theaters from Friday on in Los Angeles. “The Gruffalo,” is Germany’s Oscar-nominated animated short, produced by A Magic Light Pictures Production. The LA Times calls the film ‘a charming fable about outsmarting one’s fears.
Culture
2011 Rose Parade – Impressions
The sun was out. Crisp air. Wonderful atmosphere. Fantastic start into the new year 2011 !
2011 – The Rose Parade – Tournament of Roses
Every year thousands of people make their way to Pasadena early on the first morning of the new year. Many of them have even spent their New Year‘s Eve out on the streets and settled in to camp over night just to get the perfect spot to watch a grandiose flower spectacle in the morning of New Year’s Day: The Rose Parade in Pasadena – A timeless New Year’s tradition in California.
The Tournament of Roses can look back on a long history. The first one in 1890 drew an audience of 2,000 people. In 2010 about 500,000 out-of-town guests arrived to see the parade. About 51.9 million people in the U.S. watched the 2010 Rose Parade on TV and it is also broadcast worldwide.
This year it is estimated that 700,000 people will be present along the parade route on January 1 for the yearly festivities.
Interested in watching the parade in person? Here is some information to help you plan for it :
- The parade will start January 1st, 2011 at 8am and last 2 hours.
- Starting Point is, Green Street & Orange Grove in Pasadena. It then continues North on Orange Grove then East on Colorado Blvd. to Sierra Madre Blvd., then north on Sierra Madre Blvd. to Paloma Street – a total of 5 1/2 miles
- Of all the floats , 25 entries will receive awards. Viewers can vote for the Viewer’s Choice Award by voting online or for the first time they will be able to vote by texting the keyword FLOAT followed by the Float entry number to 50649
- More information on the event can be found on the official website: http://www.tournamentofroses.com/pasadena-tournament-of-roses
Happy New Year to all !
Related Articles
- Discover to Join the 2011 Tournament of Roses Parade (eon.businesswire.com)
- Southwest DeKalb band heads to Rose Bowl parade (ajc.com)
- Rose Parade Junkies Can Text to Get Pre-Parade Info (laist.com)
- 2011 Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade Line Up Set! Your GUIDE to the BEST NEW YEARS PARTY IN THE WORLD! (economy4abc.blogspot.com)
German-language Christmas Eve Services in SoCal – December 24th
The following churches in the greater Los Angeles area will be holding German-language Christmas Eve services on December 24, 2010 :
Glendale, CA
First German United Methodist Church (Christuskirche)
556 West Glenoaks Blvd., Glendale, CA 91202
Phone: (818) 500-0786
December 24, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Orange, CA
St. John’s Lutheran Chuch
185 S. Center Street, Orange, CA 92866
Phone: (714) 288-4400
December 24, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Santa Monica, CA
Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
1343 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Phone: (310) 452-1116
December 24, 2010 at 3:00 pm
(Source: German Consulate General Los Angeles: 6222 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 500; Los Angeles, CA, 90048)
HAPPY HOLIDAYS – FROEHLICHE WEIHNACHTEN – HAPPY NEW YEAR !
Another year is coming to an end and CaliforniaGermans wants to thank all our readers and friends for their support throughout this year.
We look forward to an exciting 2011, in which we plan to implement some new ideas and revamp our Resource Pages.
For the last minute holiday shopper, we have a couple of fun gift ideas so you can relax and enjoy Christmas at home as well. Don’ t run around for last minute gifts and spend your time in the mall. The following alternative gift options are quick, easy and fun:
- Gift someone one with the unique gift of his/her own website. A personal or professional website, fully designed and hosted —complete with url—for just $29.99, by ElsePage.com. Your website gift is delivered via email and/or a fancy printable Gift card.
- For the movie lover : Gift a 12-month subscription and the lucky one on your list will receive a DVD with the newest award winning film each month. Offered by FilmMovement, award winning independent and foreign films.
With best wishes for a wonderful holiday and a healthy, peaceful and joyous 2011
Merry Christmas – Froehliche Weihnachten
&
Happy New Year
Advent, Advent, ein Lichtlein brennt…
Advent, Advent,
ein Lichtlein brennt!
Erst eins, dann zwei, dann drei, dann vier,
dann steht das Christkind vor der Tür!
Christmas – the favorite season of the year, is here! The first Advent happened already last week and children started opening their advent calendars on December 1st. As the little folk poem says “…First one (candle) then two, then three, then four – then Christmas is in front of your door” and with that the end of the year is very fast approaching.
Before I even want to go into New Year’s solutions , are you prepared for Christmas? Well, I certainly am not and it frankly scares me to hear if someone says they have already bought all their Christmas presents and are ready to go! But presents are just one part of the whole Christmas experience. What about Christmas cookies? Should you be a baking expert then I am sure you are right in the middle of it now. If you are not into baking or just bake a few traditional cookies, and still would like to enjoy a greater variety of German Christmas delicacies, GermanDeli.com is a great way to start Christmas shopping for German Christmas cookies ,cakes and much more.
Every year when I put in my order online it always has been a great experience from the moment I send off the online order to receiving the package. It is a pleasure to see how this company knows what customer service means. From the time the online order is sent of, GermanDeli.com is in communication with you per email, letting you know the progress of your order. When the package arrives, one will find the order packed into a climate box that’s attractively covered by a black cardboard with a German flag ribbon. Upon opening the box one will find the products all separately wrapped or packed and kept at a certain temperature level with the help of cooling ice packs (which by arrival have become watery but did definitely do their job). Everything is perfectly kept and all cookies are still in one and not partly broken, which happened before when I used a different online store to get my German Christmas goodies.
The GermanDeli online store is a great alternative to having family and friends send stuff over from Germany or even to finding a German store in your vicinity. They have a great Christmas selection, which unfortunately does sell out quickly the closer Christmas approaches. So get your order in quickly before it’s too late and remember to start your Christmas cookie shopping early next year. Otherwise there is no other way around baking them all yourself …
Related Articles
- Top 10 Facts About Advent (cantuar.blogspot.com)
Sankt Martins Tag, Faschings Anfang und Veterans Day
November 11th marks one very anticipated day for children in Germany. Sankt Martins Tag is the unofficial start of the holiday season and with its festive celebration ringing in the magic times ahead and the most favorite holiday sesaon of the year: Christmas.
In Germany it’s custom to celebrate the generous roman soldier, who later got baptized, with a “Laternenumzug”. The celebration starts in the evening when the children gather with their self-made little lanterns for a procession singing St. Martin’s songs. Oftentimes the legend of St. Martin is acted out and brings to life one of the most famous legends about him: Saint Martin was a Roman soldier and a very kind man. Once during a snowstorm, he cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar to save him from dying of the cold.
Traditional is also to hand out “Weckmaenner” a baked ‘man’ reminiscent of a gingerbread man perhaps, but not made of sweet cookie dough but rather formed out of sweet yeast dough. For a recipe follow the link to an article on the German- Info website
Oddly enough November 11 is also the start of the Fasching/Carnival season in Germany. It’s the kick-off for the fool season and Faschings clubs make their plans for upcoming parties and parades.
Here in the US, Veterans Day is being observed on November 11th. It’s a public holiday honoring military veterans.
HALLOWEEN – The Informal Start of Winter And The Holiday Season
Driving through the neighborhoods one can see ghouls and ghosts and pumpkins everywhere: Halloween! Kids are eagerly watching the neighbors’ decorations and are bound to top them with scarier stuff on their own front porch. Young & old seem to love Halloween, the dress-up parties and whatever else comes with it.
When I moved to California Halloween was a custom I knew of, but never had observed, since there was no such festivity in Germany at that time. Times have changed and I am witnessing my family and friends over there today engaging in Halloween parties, getting the kids ready for their Halloween trick or treat night as if they lived right next door to me! “Hey, that’s not fair” my little one exclaims. “They have Fasching twice!”
Not really but in essence true. But where does the Halloween custom come from and is there some correlation to our German Fasching? Wikipedia gives an in depth explanation on Halloween mentioning that the word Halloween came up the first time in the 16th century and represented a Scottish version of All-Hallows-Even (Hallow meaning in old English, Saints) and therefore was the night before All Saints Day, a holiday observed by most of the Western Christian world. People had the superstitious belief that during that time the dead could return to earth and according to the ancient Celtic ‘Samhain’ celebration, which influenced Halloween as well, spirits both harmless and harmful could pass through to the world. To ward of these spirits ancient Celts disguised themselves as harmful spirits themselves so they would not be harmed.
The tradition of kids going from door to door apparently stems from the medieval times “ when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1) receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2)” (Wikipedia)
Halloween seems to also mark a turning point where fall for sure turns into winter. The months for various festivities have started and we are being reminded that the end of the year is near. Interesting also here the relation to the festival of Samhain that celebrates the end of the “lighter half” of the year and beginning of the “darker half”. It is in fact sometimes regarded as the “Celtic New Year” (Wikipedia). The Romans had a festival ‘Feralia’ where the spirits of the dead were honored. Feralia though was celebrated in February, which brings us back to the German Fasching being related to Halloween after all. One memorable Weiberfastnacht’s event near Garmisch Partenkirchen in fact brings back images of horrible witches and other scary figures streaming through the villages. Isn’t that similar to what we will experience tomorrow night?
By the way, the official start of our German Fasching is also in November. To be exact November 11, at 11:11 am!
“HAPPY HALLOWEEN”
Related Articles
- “Samhain, Summer’s End, Halloween” and related posts (willoaksstudio.blogspot.com)
- Why Do We Dress Up on Halloween? (livescience.com)
- The History of Halloween (socyberty.com)
- The History of Halloween (socyberty.com)
Reunification of Germany/Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands – 20 Jaehriges Jubilaeum
It’s seems just yesterday that the news circled the world of the Berlin Wall falling down and of Germany being reunited again. But the fall of the wall was just the beginning of a long path of bringing the two “Germanys” together again and it wasn’t an easy one often.
The wall fell in 1989 and in 1990 the Deutschmark was introduced. On September 12 of that year the Two-Plus-Four-Treaty was signed and led to Germany regaining full sovereignty. On October 3, the Unification Treaty officially reunited Germany and October 3 became Germany’s new national day.
Germans all over the world are celebrating this day with various festivities. The German Consulate Los Angeles has put together the following list with happenings in and around LA:
German Week at Concordia University Irvine – October 2-7, 2010
German-American Day Celebration, October 2, 2010
Premiere Screening: One Germany, Twenty Years Later, October 3, 2010
Book Signing with Author Anke Otto-Wolf, October 3, 2010
Goethe-Institut Los Angeles: Celebrating 20 Years of Unity, Oct. 5-13, 2010
Lectures: Drafting a United Germany – Horst Teltschik, Oct. 18-19, 2010
Related Articles
- Germany celebrates 20 years of reunification (msnbc.msn.com)
- 20 years on, Germans reflect on reunification (sfgate.com)
- 20 years on, Germans reflect on reunification (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Merkel: Germany ‘culturally richer’ following reunification (cnn.com)
- 20 years since the reunification of Berlin (independent.co.uk)
- 20 years on, Germans reflect on reunification (foxnews.com)
Cool For Kids – Last Chance For Frog Safari
FROG SAFARI at El Muzeo in Anaheim
Saturday, September 4 @ 6PM – 8 PM
Bring your flashlights for a night safari with the zoo keeper and explore the habitats of over 100 live frogs in darkness. The MUZEO zoo keeper will be leading guided tours at 6:15 and 7:15 PM. General admission tickets purchased on September 4 during normal business hours can be used for re-entry that evening.
MUZEO will be closed from 5 PM to 6 PM for the frogs to acclimate to the dark then doors will re-open at 6 PM for the safari adventure.
Only two dates left Saturday, September 4 and Tuesday, September 7 for the popular Feed-A-Frog Program. Enjoy a behind the scenes tour with zoo keeper and feed the frogs their breakfast from 9 AM – 10 AM before the museum opens to the public. Tickets purchased for this event are good for the whole day!
Tickets for this event must be purchased online. Reserve your space now at www.muzeo.org!