„OK, I’ll buy the tickets, then!“, I cheerily called into the receiver of my parents’ telephone. But how should I tell Mommy and Daddy that I wouldn’t be at home for Christmas and on New Year’s Eve for the first time – and that I'd need some extra money for the tickets on top of that??

Bloody stress!! If only I'd known! (OK, so I had. But who likes to admit a mistake when there's the possibility of blaming everyone else?) I went to school with a spare t-shirt in my bag and changed t-shirts after the end of classes in the narrow, smelly, dirty toilet cabin. Makeover’s done! Run! Hurry up! Your bus is going in 5 minutes!! Taking my trunk with me, I ran out to catch my bus - together with about one hundred other kids and teachers. Hell yeah! Winter holidays! My bus was absolutely overcrowded, as well as my connecting train. Who could ever be as stupid as to travel with German Railways just two days before Christmas? Well, when I got on the train in Bremen, there were sweating, chatting and, due to winter colds, chesty people of every age everywhere on seats and on the floor. Have a nice journey!
Of course it’s always in these situations that the reservations system is out of order and I have to scramble for my paid seat with a snoring man. But why is it that difficult to wake him up? And why is he so fat that he squeezes people, suitcases, a small yelping dog and a just a little larger handbag against the windows steamy with condensed breath when trying to stand up? And why, WHY THE HECK do they have so many suitcases and bags with them that even Paris Hilton would be astonished???
Well, when we arrived at Osnabrück Central Station (yeah, that’s only 45 minutes with an express train!) I could finally sit down in my not very comfortable but at least paid seat next to that, due to sitting or standing people and their suitcases, permanently open door, ready for another 4 hours' journey!
As a modern youth one can do one thing on such a journey above all: Listen to music. And this was exactly what all people sitting in the wagon did. Altruistic as they were, they let their fellow passengers enjoy their share of the crescendos of their different music preferences at maximum volume free of charge.
From the front left Sido was rapping something about his tough life in his block, while the dull basses from of the young guys' head phones next to me and the rattling metal music of the punk in the aisle next to me were competing for my attention. The ones who had lost their hearing through age or excessive consumption of music were lucky.
Admittedly, it did not bother me much. ICEs have the advantage that there are headphone jacks in the armrests…for all those who don't know what to do with their loose headphones. The repertory in the armrest radio is at most semi-comfortable, but it’s at least better than Sidos shouting "hyper hyper" along with metal sounds.
Soon I would lie in a deep slumber, carried by 90's songs and muffled by the smell of packed lunch and glogg drinking white-beards in their 60s (I wonder if Santa travels by rail..?). I forgot the sorrows, the christmas stress, the people around me, the..."NÄCHSTER HALT: DORTMUND HAUPTBAHNHOF. SIE HABEN ANSCHLUSS ZU..."
What a nice feeling it is when the pain in the ears decreases after pulling the plug out of the jack. It is not such a nice feeling that the voice still does not stop. I think that train loudspeakers are overrated. I cannot forbear wishing for a big can of coffee and an English lesson as a Christmas gift for the slack and tired-sounding engine driver. Should I slip one of the white bearded men a wish list?

Not every English-speaking passenger could make sense of the stammered "Tenk ju vor trewellink. Wi wisch ju aj märri Kristmäs. Gut bej."
So a young man in suit asked the hasting train attendant shortly past Cologne when we were expected to reach Bochum. He thought that the ride took already too long. Mildly shocked he had to learn that he missed his destination by one hour. Or rather one hour and 15 minutes, because it took this time, until the young man understood what the shreds of English of the train attendant meant. I never learned how this story ended, because fortunately I found a new battery. With its help, my music could finally join Scooter, Aggro Berlin and Juds Priest.
Shielded from the outer world I reached the main station of Mainz 90 minutes later. My destination. Yay, I did it! Now christmas could start.
Along with approximately a hundred other people, I squeezed myself onto a small escalator, pulling the suitcase behind me, dragging and carrying it. When we were slowly transported upwards I thought I heard epic movie music inside my head. The kind of music you can hear in trashy hollywood movies whenever a couple meets after a long time apart at an airport/train station/etc. That one moment filmed from the view of the arriving person. The upreaching stages of the escalator. The tons of candles, chains and stars of light mounted in each corner are slowly creeping into the scene. Then the camera switches to the view of the waiting person. The head of his/her beloved on the staircase slowly appears, then the rest of him/her. A short orientation-seeking look around until the eyes of the lovers meet each other followed by an embrace, then the kiss.

Yes, I admit it – from time to time I love trashy things like that! But if Christmas isn’t the right time of the year for this, when is the time? And the very idea of Christmas stands for all which was ever connected to trashy things and I had always laughed about.

At home at Chris' place we were greeted by the lovely smell of cookies and a dearly embrace from his mother. The time until Christmas passed by fast. I was allowed to decorate the Christmas tree with the younger brothers and before Christmas evening came I got to know the Christmas rituals of my boyfriend's childhood. The roller shutters in the living room were closed. The room's lights were switched off. Chairs were blocking the door. The youngest two were completely anxious, they couldn’t bear to wait until the bell would ring and the old gramophone record their uncle had brought with him would play.

When I finally entered the living room it felt like I had been put into a wonderful dream. A trashy kind of dream about Christmas. I loved it! The Christmas tree shone brightly (was it really me who did that or did it just jumped out of my romantical imagination?). The floor was covered with pillars of presents. Mother and Father stood next to each other; they were looking at their children rushing to their presents with sparkling eyes. The room was filled with the smell of candle wax, fir branches and cinnamon stars and in this unlighted place I even found a pillar of presents for me. Earmuffs, a new book and a sweet poem from my boyfriend.

When I looked around, I felt like the happiest person on the world. The youngest of the boys played with his gameboy, the middle one was reading an instruction belonging to one of his gifts – and my boyfriend was smiling over his whole face, because he got the teddy bear from me that he had wished for.

The time passed by until someone had the idea to visit the midnight mess. Church?? I hadn’t done this for years on Christmas. But why not? Today, everything was perfect, it was simply part of it all.

By six people we walked through the cold and frozen city streets towards the church. Looking up to the stars and christmas lights that made the frozen ground sparkle in the delighted moonlight, I was holding the hand of my boyfriend looking at his swirling clouds of breath and I realized something. This was the perfect Christmas.