Um… falala? Or whatever the Swiss-German equivalent is.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. And it’s about friggin’ time.

The holiday spirit has been having a really hard time catching up with me this year – I kept running away and sticking my tongue out and saying “Nananananana! You are not going to get me!”. Yeah, something along those lines, only grumpier.

But really, one can be all Grinch-like only for so long when the holidays approach. Decorations everywhere, kids excitedly compiling their wish list, stores all decked up and shiny, with bright paper packages, big and small, everywhere. They might be empty, those packages, but so beautifully wrapped that you can’t help but feel like you want to have packages just like that under your tree. And there it starts.

Then there is the local bakery, where we often stop to get croissants on the way to school, and where my daughters recently started requesting something other than the buttery, flakey deliciousness: they each want a man made out of sweet bread, with raisins for eyes, a.k.a. a Grittibänz.

They are quite good, soft and a little sweet, and the girls love them, but I think they creep Stella out a bit. She just plays with hers for the longest time, without taking a single bite. Then when she cannot resist the delicious aroma anymore, she licks the sugar grains off. And then she starts eating it… legs first. Not the head, like everyone else. And don’t you dare rip off its head or one of its arms or legs to take a bite, because she will scream, oh yes she will. Now that I think of it, it’s kind of creepy to be eating what’s kind of looks like a voodoo doll made out of bread. Merry Christmas! *chomp*

But nothing says Christmas in Zurich like the Christmas Market they have every year in the Main Station.

The stands are in the shape of very small chalets, all decorated, and featuring many different kinds of merchandise, mostly handmade:

And then of course there is the pièce de résistance: the tree. A tree about 15 meters (50 feet) tall, with 6,000 Swarovski crystal decorations hanging from its branches. Even when I am not feeling festive, this tree will do the trick for me. It is really stunning, and I’m sorry my picture doesn’t do it justice.

The tree is always surrounded by several themed Swarovski displays, that change every year.

Store decorations in Zurich of course cannot rival the ones in NYC, but in case you hadn’t noticed yet, the Swiss do seem to take their Holidays decorating quite seriously, so sometimes I will go into stores just to see how they decorated. One of my favorites is the Glattzentrum (which is technically in Walliselen, but still in canton Zurich, and not far out of the city), where in addition to everything else, they always have an indoor skating rink during the holidays.

If all this wasn’t enough to end my recent Grinch-like mood, it snowed the last two days, and I woke up to this:

And my daughters have been playing in the snow and giggling and coming back with flushed cheeks and cold, red noses, but really happy. And when they don’t want to come home, I can lure them in with a cup of hot cocoa with whipped cream. Delicious! and look! There it is. My holiday spirit! This would have gone much faster, had we just started with the hot chocolate bit.