Hexen Nacht

April does not seem like an overly Halloweeny month to me...but I guess that makes me even less German! The night of April 30th is Hexen Nacht or Witches Night. It's an old tradition that says that witches come down from the mountains as cold winds and such, and cause slight mayhem in the towns. Nowdays, moms and dads take their kids out in the early evening and toilet paper trees, bushes, cars and streetsigns. It's all innocent fun. The bigger kids come out later in the night and do some shaving cream and doorbell pranks, but nothing too bad. The most valued prize, however, is the trashcan. They look for them all over town and they steal them. The next morning, you have to go to the center square in your town and find your trashcan. We put our away in the basement so this wouldn't happen to us. My German teacher, Chrystal, was telling us of a Hexen Nacht many years ago that happened to her. She, at that point in time, worked at an orphanage as a secretary. She lived up the hill from the office she worked in and had decided to go into to finish up a little paperwork. As she was coming down the hill, she noticed there was a rather large crowd outside her building. As she got closer, she realized why. Her office, the exact way she had it inside, was now on the roof! She laughed so hard! A couple of boys came up to her and stated "Look what the witches did to you!". She, of course, new it was them. They helped her get everything back into her office and nothing had been harmed. She just laughed as she told us this. This is what Hexen Nacht is all about. Harmless pranks. I just thought I'd share this with you!