"Bunter Teller"

The literal translation would be :multicolored plate. Sounds very strange in English. It's a plate full of all the Christmas goodies, baked, bought, combined with apples, nuts and mandarines. We used to find one for each, when we were allowed to enter the "Christmas room", which in Germany was and probably still is on the 24th of December. It's then that you get your gifts. (And we were not allowed to enter that room on the 24th, before the bell rang…Before the 24, there was no decoration or any sight of gifts , except for the Advents wreath with its 4 candles. How hard it must be for American kids to see the gifts lying underneath the christmas tree often for weeks before the 25th!)
These old habits die hard. We had a little pre - Christmas - celebration with our son (18) last night, who was going to leave today to visit his half brother in San Diego. That's where he and his (real) mom are having Christmas this year.
So I prepared it like in the good old days, one plate for each, we had a lovely dinner (hubby was the chef) and enjoyed lots of talking and the obligatory "gift exchange" .
Our son took gladly his sweets with him, I took a picture of one of our plates that are still there, before they will look to empty and pilfered, hubby loves the not so succeeded cookies…

Sorry for not commenting on all your kind reactions to my sunset of the 19th. I am so busy, that I just try to visit your journals at the moment.