Count Down to Lent - Rosenmontag

In you've never heard of Rosenmontag (Rose Monday), don't feel alone. I'm married to a German immigrant, and I didn't hear about Rosenmontag until I lived and worked in Germany (in the Rheinland-Pfalz state) in the 1980s. My husband is a German immigrant from the predominately Catholic German state of Bavaria, where they celebrate Fasching before Lent.

Back to Rosenmontag, which has nothing to do with roses. Rosenmontag is a day to get crazy during the German Karneval (carnival) season leading up to Lent.

At the office where I worked in Kaiserlautern, the local German women took charge and made a big production of cutting the ties off of men who wore them to work on Rosenmontag. The men, of course, took it all in good fun and knew to wear old worn-out ties on that day.

In addition to the cutting of ties, there was lots of eating and drinking of wine and beer and schnapps (for its medicinal purposes, of course).

Prosit! (a German toast to your good health)