After a long wintery break the Jewish calendar decided that the new year for the trees falls right in the middle of January. After weeks of beautiful weather, the temperatures are starting to drop here in Germany ( this weekend was -14 Celsius!). So even though in Germany the timing of Tu Bishvat doesn't seem to make perfect sense there has been no lack of festivities. The celebrations started for me in Duisburg at the Jewish Kindergarten where I joined in for the children's Tu Bishvat party. After planting "Blumen" (flowers) I led an activity where we learned about the blessings for fruits and vegetables. As a bit of a personal triumph I led the whole lesson in German! Then we had the children make fruit salad faces. I was pretty impressed with the ingenuity of these 3-5 year olds face recognition abilities! Across Germany the idea of a "Tu Bishvat Seder" seems to be pretty popular. This concept was brand new to me, and basically its