Henry's Birthday at School

At Henry's school, parents take turns bringing snack.  When we first got the school booklet last year, we looked at the end of the book and saw several recipes listed.  We could choose among these to bring for  snack.  For your child's birthday, you bring the Geburtstag snack.  So we were happy to have our oven fixed just in time to make his snack.  We excitedly pulled out the booklet, anxious to try out baking in Austria -- only to discover the "recipes" in the back were actually lists of things (homemade, preferred) to bring.  Ha!  Our ability to decipher German has improved immensely!  We were to bring a Sacher torte, kuchen, 2 kilos of fruit and 1 liter of juice.  After much debate, inspection of ingredients available (sugars have a different consistency here -- more on baking later!), and given the time we had, we decided to buy the Sacher torte and make coffee cake for the kuchen.  We were disappointed that the leftover food was put away when we picked up Henry.  We all wanted to taste that Sacher torte and see how the coffee cake turned out!

See the litte picture of Henry on a stick?

Each month at the school, they have a Gerburtstag celebration for all the kids celebrating birthdays that month.  Henry was the only October birthday so the celebration was held Friday, the day before his birthday.  (It was also the first celebration of the schoolyear.)  You can see the set up in the picture.  The blanket is divided into 4 colors: red for autumn ("herbst"), blue for winter, green for spring and yellow for summer.  On top of the blanket is a circular puzzle with each puzzle piece being a month of the year.  The months were laid over the blanket corresponding to the seasons (September 21 was on the border of the yellow and red).  The puzzle had small holes on it corresponding to the days of the month.  A small picture of Henry mounted on a stick is placed in the hole for October 8.  Henry placed the small Fall objects on the red part of the blanket:  pumkins, scarecrow, red leaves, etc.  The little girl in the picture is placing numbers on each of the months (1 for January thru 12 for December).  Another girl placed all the pictures around the circle, 2 for each month, of activities that happen in that month.

In front of Henry they put a lit candle in a ceramic holder, and a train with each car holding an unlit candle.  The kids and teachers all sat around the circle and the teacher started a song about the first year of life.  At this time, Henry picked up the lit candle and walked carefully around the circle and sat down again.  When the verse was finished, a child lit one candle on the train.  This was repeated 5 more times - once for each year of life.  After this, they sang a birthday song in German and Happy Birthday in English and German.  Then they put a picture of Venus on the blanket and played some Venus music and invited the kids to dance.  I felt very lucky to have been included in this little ceremony, and I look forward to visiting again when it's another child's birthday!

Sue