relax - Swiss Club

news from
the swiss school
christmas
market: a
blaze of glory
and brilliance
Festively decorated houses with heavy snow on their roofs, artfully trimmed
Christmas trees and a colourful market booth: on the evening of the 15th of
December the sports hall of the Swiss School was changed into a romantic
Christmas Market where you could not only find a confectioner and dozens of
donkeys and Santas but also a Marroni man who sold candied chestnuts. The Holy
Family and angels attended as well as tourists in search of a nice photo.
Only the parents and guests dressed for summer, the humming of the fans and
the omnipresent mosquitoes reminded the audience that this ‘wintery’ market took
place near the Equator.
The P5 students charmingly and wittily guided the audience through the
evening which was organised and overseen by the Advent Committee. A big thank
you goes therefore to Sacha Dähler, Rashne Athayde, Julia Crowe, Wendy Lim,
Beatrice Wah, Sibylle Wey, Charlotte Portmann, Noemi Ahr, Felicia Bettschart and
Christine Ackermann as well as to the two music teachers and all class teachers
who did a wonderful job in preparing their pupils for this event.
The evening opened up as the youngest from the EC department sang the
world renowned song “Jingle Bells”. Heavily loaded donkeys and happy Santas—
one unfortunately with a leg in a cast—came to the Christmas Market, staged
and sang “Was isch das fürnes Liechli” with a perfect Zurich accent. Rock tunes
followed from the Kindergarten students who clicked their fingers and swung their
hips in a rock star routine.
Suddenly, Mrs Claus appeared at the market, looking for her husband.
Finally she found him and the P1 students performed “Alli singed mit” for several
voices. The Holy Family, accompanied by shepherds and their sheep, made an
appearance too. The P2 students brought carefully decorated stars to the market
and sang “Enleere Stall” in ‘Bethlehem’. Mary cradled her baby Jesus to sleep.
A completely different task was given to the P3 students. They gathered in the bakery
to get Christmas cookies ready. Performing “In der Weihnachtsbäckerei”, the students wore
aprons and used spatulas and baking bowls as cool percussion instruments.
The dialogue between the class productions was written by the 5th graders and
was often very comical causing great laughter from the audience. So, for instance,
when an angel, an elf and Santa had a rigorous discussion about what really
happened on Christmas Day, it was plain to see that they were unsure whether it
was the day of Mary’s birth or whether Adam and Eve got a baby boy. The mystery
was finally solved by the two P4 classes who performed “Mary’s Boy Child” after a
hefty snowball battle in the middle of the Christmas Market. They eventually cleared
the place for the P6 students who sang a Tirolese carol after which the Marroni
man and his clients led us over to the teachers’ choir whose performance was
enthusiastically applauded.
A real highlight was Björn Engeli’s speech which in fact wasn‘t a speech
but rather a performance in the form of a poem. In rhymes and hexametric form
the head of school wished everyone a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and
invited the audience out into the festively decorated school yard where they found
no Marroni man and no confectionery. In their place was a delicious, parents’
sponsored, “Advent Dinner”.
Text by Ruth Bossart, photos by C. Foelmi, S. Ritter and C. Kaeser.
36 Relax FEBRUARY 2012