Schwibbogen - Moritzburg Castle - Three Wishes for Cinderella

Today's post has more than one topic.
Let's start with the Schwibbogen or Lichterbogen (candle arch/light arch) which I have wrote about before.
First a little history taken from that old blog post.

Johann Teller, a blacksmith who made equipment for mines in the Ore Mountains, made the first candle arch in the 18th century (info on the exact year varies). His inspiration was the pit hole entry and he made it for the "Mettenschicht", an old miners' tradition in the Protestant region. It was the last shift before Christmas which ended early with a simple meal and a celebration.
While early arches were made from wrought iron, wood became more and more popular from the beginning of the 20th century.
A famous design created by Paula Jordan in 1937 showed the main sources of income for the people of the Ore Mountains and traditional symbols.
Designs changed over the years to cities or forest scenes and you find all sizes, small ones for windows, but also huge ones put up by cities, like this one in Johanngeorgenstadt.

Picture by Hejkal on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)

When I got my own light arch, that was such a surprise for me. My friend had the idea and her talented husband made it. Isn't it gorgeous and just perfect for me?

It also presented me with the opportunity for one of my favorite pictures of dem Dekan who loves the arch (meaning he likes to gnaw on the tips of the trees, I'm very glad they are sturdy).

I love this so much that I had one of my favorite
cartoonists - Lingvistov - turn it into a cartoon version.

Let's get to another Christmas tradition now. The following movie is as much a part of Christmas here as "Little Lord Fauntleroy". A list of broadcast dates comes out early and while there are people who think it has been shown often enough, there are more people for whom it is a must watch at least once a year - and I'm one of those.

I'm talking about "Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel" (Czech title "Tři oříšky pro Popelku") from 1973, "Three Wishes for Cinderella" in English (there's only a version with English subtitles).
The film was a co-production between Czechoslovakia and East Germany which were both known for their beautiful fairy tale productions at the time.
Originally this was supposed to be a summer movie, but that was changed to winter due to production issues, and although Christmas isn't mentioned once, it being broadcast around the holidays turned it into a Christmas classic in Czechoslovakia (later Czechia), Germany, Norway (which made its own version in 2021), but also other countries.
The history of the film - from script over the actors and actresses to stunts, set or costumes - is just as interesting, by the way.

Now what is different about this Cinderella? I'll take this from one of my old "quote of the week" posts.
Well, this Cinderella is a bit of a tomboy. She loves to ride her horse Nikolaus if she can get away from her mean stepmother and stepsister, she climbs trees, she's an excellent archer. 
Every winter the King, Queen, and their son travel to their castle and make a stop at the stepmother's farm, a chance she uses to get an invitation to the ball for her daughter and herself.
The Prince and his friends do their best to avoid any responsibility which makes the King decide that the Prince will have to choose a bride, much to his dismay.
On their escapes to nature, the young men meet Cinderella, once as the young girl covered in ashes, once at a hunt she wins by shooting a cone off a tree, wearing an outfit the first of three magic hazelnuts has given her. She's not intimidated by the Prince, but stands her ground which impresses him (not realizing it's her both times, though).
The second hazelnut gives her a beautiful gown in which she attends the ball hidden behind a veil. The Prince is blown away, but she won't agree to his proposal until he solves her riddle.

"The cheeks are smudged with ashes, but it's not the chimney sweep. A hat with feathers, the crossbow over the shoulder, but it's not a hunter. ... Thirdly, a silver brocaded gown with train for the ball, but it's not a princess, my noble sir."

The Prince is clueless and Cinderella runs off. She loses her shoe on the stairs, well, I think you know how that tale ends.

That part of the movie was shot at Moritzburg Castle in the state of Saxony.

Now let me connect the stories of the Schwibbogen and Aschenbrödel.
My friend said she would like to visit to drop my Christmas gift early and in person because it was too awkward to send it by mail.
After making sure it wasn't a kitten, I generously granted access to my flat.
Out of the bag came - Moritzburg Castle as a light arch! It's smaller than my cat arch and so very cute, but of course the best about it is that it doesn't just have the balcony and the stairs that Cinderella ran down, but also the shoe!

Der Dekan was shocked when I told him that his
feet were too big for the shoe - rude! - but he was
even more shocked when I told him the measures
the stepsisters in the original fairy tale took hoping
for marriage with the Prince. One cut her heel off,
the other her toe ... he didn't want to be a Princess
anymore after hearing that.

And while I was surprised that der Dekan broke one of his rules and came down off the wardrobe although my friend isn't direct family (he let her pet him before she could even bribe him which seriously made me doubt everything I know about him), I wasn't surprised that he had to do a very thorough check of the arch as the resident safety officer.

Midsomer, um, Göppingen Murders, episode 1

Trigger warning - disturbing graphic content. Kind of ... 😼

"I have seen a lot over the years, Inspector, but a heinous crime like this one ..." The old lady had to hold back the tears and sniffled a bit. "I hadn't expected anything like this and the shock when I saw ..."
"Why don't you take a seat and try to calm down a little? Maybe a cup of tea?"
"That would be nice, there's a box with bags next to the fridge where the kettle is." Still shaking, the old lady sat down on one of the chairs standing around the dinner table. The inspector, used to taking in all details, noticed the claw marks on it.
Once the old lady had calmed down a bit, she told the whole story. She had had a very nice nap after being downtown for a while and got up to go to the bathroom. There it was, a bright orange parcel on the floor, scattered around it pieces of plastic and orange cardboard.
"It had been standing next to the door across the hallway", she said. "I hadn't got around to put it away yet. I didn't expect an attack like that." Her lower lip wobbled a bit.
"That wasn't what shocked you, though, was it?"
"No. I just put it back and picked up the plastic and cardboard. But then ... the water bowl .... in the water bowl ..." Her hand went to her mouth. "I heard it and I didn't do anything. I thought it was just him knocking his grocery store box around. He likes to play in it. I wouldn't have thought he was capable of this." She pointed into the hallway where forensics was at work.
"I understand that you didn't know the victim."
"No, he had only just arrived in town and I hadn't met him yet. How could he do it, Inspector, how could he??"
The Inspector wished he had an answer for her ...

Actually, it's not the first murder here. We are almost as bad as Midsomer County.
Over 13 years ago, there was an episode of CSI: Göppingen, and of course no one who witnessed it will ever be able to forget the Christmas Massacre of 2018 (the "dead" woolie parrot next to me in bed was a bit creepy). There is more that was never documented, but will remain unforgotten.

But honestly, I had just had a great nap with my snuggle buddy and then this?
It was surprising enough to see he had dragged the - not too light, I might add - box with the cat food into the bathroom (the toilet is by itself in a pretty small room which must have made things more difficult for him).
And yes, I had heard him, but there's said box in the hallway which he absolutely loves to jump around in and slide into (it's open at one side) or take toys in there with him. I did think it was a bit loud this time, but it's der Dekan and he can be both as silent as a snake or as loud as an elephant herd, and you would think he'd commit murder without a big ruckus.
Then he comes to the bed, curls up in my arm for a nap, exuding innocence and cuteness, and lets me stumble upon his victim later? Shameful.

When I saw the parcel, I was flabbergasted for a second. It has not been the first time that der Dekan tried to get something out through one of the grip holes that these boxes have. He managed to kill a kibble bag before (without making it to the kibbles, though, a big disappointment). He's also pretty good in knocking stuff all over the place and making it turn up in other rooms.

He worked hard on the food box, and believe me, this is some sturdy cardboard. The grip holes hadn't even been open, but obviously the small perforation gap around them had been enough to draw him to the scent in the box (probably that of the dried deer strips which he would gladly kill me for, if I hold one over his head, he comes up like a shark out of water).

Towards the holidays, my cat food supplier adds toys as a gift to the parcels. I didn't even know that they had already started until my sister told me.
Maybe it was the disappointment about not getting the good stuff out of the parcel which made den Dekan send Mr. Raccoon (?) to sleep with the fishies (leading a fish gang he's an expert in these matters)?

I regret nothing!!

I'll be completely honest with you. When I walked by the water bowl, I had to laugh out loud. This is such a Dekan move.
Oh, and if you wonder, by the way, why Gundel didn't tell the story this time, she slept through all of this on her pillow. Being boss of the household is very tiring.
And der Dekan, well, it would have been a very short post because all I got from him was "No comment"! 😎


P.S. The parcel is behind a locked door now. The day after I'm writing this, we are going to open it together. If you don't hear from me anymore, the brat trampled me to get to the good stuff.

P.P.S. He didn't trample me, but when we opened the parcel, I found that he had shredded the plastic window in the bag of the deer slices that I got for the poodles upstairs 😂

With a little help from my friend

I couldn't resist the title even if George Harrison neither wrote nor sang the song, yes, and there is an s missing, but Gundel stayed out of this one completely while der Dekan was eager to help.

Are we playing again?

Although I had planned more WIP posts of my Lego Art set, I finished it more quickly than expected.
Please meet the colorful George Harrison!
It is a cool piece of pixel art, but it wasn't as much fun as a regular Lego project. In fact, in the end it felt more like a chore that had to get finished so I could take it off a to do list.
As I mentioned in replies to comments on the original post, it could be fun to try and make a design of my own, but 1. I don't feel like ripping all the studs out despite the included brick separator (which I wish I had had as a kid), 2. designing it would be the fun, the actual bricking might feel like a chore as well, 3. I still have a pattern for another fan wall portrait waiting to be bead loomed which is a lot more fun (if I could only muster the courage to finally try out the muffin tray solution, but I put it at the top on my Christmas vacation list now).
There are studs left over, though, so maybe I can get myself a plate and try out something small on it.

I left the picture small because
it brings out the pixel art better.
Click on the picture for more detail.

George Harrison didn't end up on my wall, it would feel weird to have just him up there and also I don't want to give up wall space for this. He's on a shelf behind my big Steiff Leo now and the box - real Lego collectors may want to skip the end of this sentence - will go into the recycling after der Dekan is done with it.
I always invited him to brick with me, but a few of the sessions ended without him. He was quite good at the beginning, but mid-session he lost all patience with me not being faster and not letting him play with the contents of the box.
Some of the baggies were hidden under cardboard with an opening, for example, so you could see something was in there.
As much as I didn't want the brat to get in there and maybe escape with an open plastic bag, I couldn't be mad at him for following his natural instinct of investigating the "mousehole". My attempt at distracting him with head kisses was only partially successful because he started kneading while sitting on the box and ended up in the opening with one foot which immediately reminded him of his mission again.

There were other temptations as well, though.
I took photos during just one of our bricking sessions and thought I'd share them with you.
Der Dekan was purring the whole time, by the way, don't let his look deceive you.
It made me laugh and tell him how much I love him, but also yell "stop" and "no" and "you little devil" a lot. A video would have been great fun for you to watch, no doubt, but I would have needed a lot more arms for that!
And if you need to know, he did actually get "thrown out" after that last picture because he went for my desk then which I'm afraid to say has a few unstable piles on it at the moment and of course those are the ones der Dekan choses for his shenanigans. It's my own fault, I know, but I have to say that he has been obsessed with my desk since he was a kitten and even then was always on the lookout for stuff to knock over or down - including my laptop - although it was really organized at that time. Since then he has been using my desk for pressuring me into getting what he wants - playing, food, snacks, mere attention - or simply for letting me know he's miffed with me.

Is this thing edible?

I have to take a closer look.

What do you mean, don't destroy the instructions before you're done?
I'm good, I'm good, gee, Mom!

Maybe just a little claw action ...

You never let me have ANY fun!

Exhibit A to prove der Dekan never gets to have any fun.

You know what? You can do this thing alone if you wanna be like that, Mom.

I am not affiliated with Lego in any way, except playing with it every, now and then.

Reading to cats

My little brother (not so little anymore) is almost nine years younger than I. Not just I, but also others in the family read all kinds of books and stories to him when he was small ... and a little bigger ... he'll admit himself that he was not an avid reader as a child because he just enjoyed being read to.
And although I would never have admitted that at the time, I now think I rather enjoyed reading to him except for the few times when I really had had other plans like watching a movie for example.

Have you ever read a sentence five times and still didn't know what you've read because your brain seemed to keep wandering off elsewhere - what do I still have to do today, what will I wear tomorrow, why do flies fly so erratically, where did I know the actress in the movie yesterday from or simply why are the people around me so loud ...
Reading something aloud can help us with our attention span and with processing what we read.
It activates our brain in different ways which can enhance comprehending and memorizing a text.

I have always been talking to myself on and off since I was a kid. To make the walk home from my friend's house less boring for example, I either read a book while walking or I made up little stories that I told myself whispering (I stopped if someone dared to walk close to me).
There are things at home I have to comment on while doing them. Sometimes I read an email out loud during drafting it to see if it makes sense and if I have covered everything.
When studying, I read something out loud if I had a problem to grasp it.
Eventually I started reading from books to myself every, now and then, a paragraph or even a chapter, but never a whole book.
Also, whenever one of my pets was sick and I held them in my arm, I read to them to comfort them. That began with Wurstel, my rabbit. I remember it like today, the only book that was in reach that day was Rübezahl, tales about a mountain spirit.

Then, about one and a half years ago, I started reading to my cats just for fun. I had sometimes done that before as well, little snippets here and there - because yes, I do talk to my cats and no, I have not started that since living on my own - but now I was doing it regularly.
Our first book was "At Christmas we feast : festive food through the ages" by British food historian Annie Gray. At first it was like "would you calm down now, come on, I'll read something to you", but I noticed I actually enjoyed doing it, and believe it or not, I felt the cats enjoyed listening. Okay, of course they did fall asleep eventually and I still read on until the chapter was finished, but yeah, it had something relaxing. 

You think that's ridiculous? A friend I told about it when we were talking about books laughed and asked me why I would think the cats enjoyed that.
Of course I would like to say now that they love my exquisite choice of literature and my talents as a reader, but that would truly be humoring myself. Our reading can only be called eclectic and my reading talents would definitely not qualify me for audiobooks.
Depending on the day I had, the temperatures, my level of tiredness or restlessness, and some other factors, I can be quite a good reader or a terrible one whose tongue gets twisted every few words.

You may wonder why I don't just participate in a reading program for children at the local library or find a group for shared reading if I like reading out loud.

There are several reasons.
Gundel and der Dekan are extremely understanding on my tongue twisting days. They don't complain if I skip a word, say a wrong one or if I struggle with the pronunciation for a second. You must know I usually read English books to them. For some reason it has always been more relaxing to me to read English out loud and German silently even before I read to the cats.
It's like a bedtime story meaning I do it before we go to sleep for the night. We don't read during the day. Well, I do, but silently. By now it feels like a good way to wind down, calm down and sometimes even sleep better (until one of the brats wakes me up for "breakfast" at 3 a.m.) or quicker. We usually do a chapter, sometimes more, rarely less, but there are no rules. The other day Gundel was lying in my arm purring while I petted her and read aloud. I think they pick up on my relaxation and they like that.

Excuse the bad pictures, but it's very hard to take one holding a camera up over your head and aiming blindly at something behind you.
When lying on the bed, I like to throw my hair back over the pillow to get it out of the way. Gundel settled in for our reading session - on my hair. Until der Dekan decided he wanted the spot, chased her off and it took a bit before we could go on reading.

They don't judge my reading choices. We've read about eating habits during Queen Victoria's time, we've read The Three Investigators books, we've read children's books, vintage crime, at the moment we alternate between a book about craft psychology and a biography about a crime author, we might add another volume from the Three Investigators.
I can choose time, duration, and book. Granted, there isn't much verbal feedback or discussion 😋, but that's fine by me. Is it slower, too? Of course it is, but we pick books accordingly.

Reading to animals isn't unusual, by the way. Shelters have discovered the benefits of reading to animals to help them deal with stress in the shelter environment.
There are loads of programs for children reading to mostly dogs, but also cats. These programs also help children to improve their reading - again, pets are very forgiving about mistakes - and concentration.
You have probably seen some of those heartwarming of about children at home reading to their pets, too.
Why should that only be useful for children, though? Isn't it more that adults are embarrassed about doing something like this? And even talking about it?

People also read out loud to one another and feel a bit embarrassed about it. I would definitely want to be the reader in something like that because I'm not a fan of audiobooks and don't know if I would like having someone else reading to me even if I knew them well.

Are you a silent reader or do you like to read aloud, too?


Selected sources:

1. Do Pets Like Being Read To? The Surprising Benefits of Reading to Your Furry Friends. On: Doggie Dude Ranch and the O'Cat Corral
2. Sarah Manavis: Read me a story: why reading out loud is a joy for adults as well as kids. In: The Guardian (archive of The Observer), May 5, 2024
3. Regina Mennig: Shared Reading - Literature for All. On the Robert-Bosch-Stiftung website, July 2018

Happy Bratcha Day - erm, Gotcha Day!

I think the title says it all.
It's unbelievable, but four years ago der Dekan entered - well, actually he was carried into Gundel's and my world and changed it forever.
A tiny kitten with a big belly, a huge ego, an urge for destruction, the teeth and claws of a mighty predator, the best snuggles, and plans for flat domination (because of not being allowed outside to take over the world instead).

I already told his story on his birthday in April, so now I'm just going to share a few pictures, old and new in random order.

Happy Gotcha Day, you big ole beloved brat! 💗

Random Saturday - Random kitty

What can I say? Der Dekan has been the epitome of grace from his very first day with us.
I never really told his story here, did I? Of course Gundel did it on Ponder's blog, mostly to vent about what I had done to her by letting this little monster in our house.

Der Dekan moved in here shortly after my birthday in 2021. The birthday was coincidence.
I felt it was time to find a companion for Gundel after Ponder had been gone for almost one and a half years. So I talked to Kosel, one of the upstairs poodles, to bring me a kitten the next time he went to the garden in a village nearby with his humans. There was a farm near there.
Just a few days later I got sent an email with a picture and the order to put the crate in the hallway. You have to remember these were still very much Covid times which was also the reason for not picking an older companion for Gundel, 1. I couldn't get to a shelter easily, 2. especially not one that didn't insist on a balcony (without exceptions), 3. as we know, shelters were wiped clean at the time (I wish they still were). 4. I didn't take two kittens because I wanted Gundel to get involved and because I was at home all the time. Gundel didn't warm up to him right away like some cats do to kittens, but they really get along fine with some very minor spats.
The email said something about how this little fellow "had to go" which I found curious. Shortly after I got my crate back, filled up with the cutest little kitten, randomly chosen ... or was he?
Possibly it had to do with him being one of nine siblings (people, as cute as kittens are, please neuter your pets!) or maybe one point was the content of his litter box.

I don't know if you can see it here, but he had a bit of a balloon belly and it wasn't worms. Maybe he had started early eating everything in sight and had got something wrong? Anyhow, the master started his new life at the vet's where he got injections and got put on a diet until his guts calmed down and I didn't need oxygen anymore after cleaning out his box.

I still like to call him Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. More than 30 years with cats, and this one still finds ways to surprise me, in good ways and some, erm, slightly annoying ways.
Everything he does, he does 200 %. Yeah, we are both not good at math.

Do you wonder why I'm telling you his story on this day of all days? Well, it's his birthday (yes, we assigned one, but he said he's okay with that)!
It's hard to believe that he's four years already and still the adorable little kitten ... What? A girl is allowed to dream, isn't she?
He may not be little (give me a moment while I wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes), but he's still adorable. Here's one of my favorite pictures even if he just eyed my cheese sandwich.

He's not at all macho (send help, he's making me say that!).

And of course he's always well-behaved (where's the help??).

Happy Purrday, my furry baby, I love you - no need to send help, no one had to make me say THAT.

Muffin Boy

When der Dekan moved in here end of June 2021, I decided to give bead looming a break.
This was one crazy kitten growing into a crazy cat. He doesn't do things by halves. When he sleeps, he turns into a big heavy sand bag that is really hard to move. His sleep is so deep sometimes that I can softly roll him off my legs, for example, and he will only wake up after the roll when touching the bed, sometimes not even right away.

When he has what I call "his five minutes", even if it can take much longer, he's insufferable. He throws tantrums and he throws things off shelves, the wardrobe, the nightstand or tries to knock certain pictures off the wall. It can mean he's hungry because the portion was too small or the food was obviously unacceptable (even if two days ago it was the best food he ever had - that's cats for you).
It can also just be too much energy, though, the kind of energy that ordinary playtime is not enough for.
Those five minutes can end as abruptly as they started or they can take forever, at all times of day or night. They don't happen every day, but when they do, it can be exhausting with that little whirlwind because he knows exactly which buttons to push! I'm quite easy to train and he's has always been fast at learning what works on me.
He looks harmless enough here, but actually this was shortly before he jumped on the wardrobe to knock down one of my Steiff fish.

What I'm trying to explain is that not all crafts are safe around him when he's awake and it's not necessarily predictable when he's going to jump all over the place, try to steal things - he can be amazingly stealthy and fast - and open bead cups to step in are not that good an idea, either.
Even Ponder and Esme, who loved walking across my bead tray with the bead cups, had one or the other mishap, but that usually just meant a few beads. They were both big jumpers, but amazingly well-behaved around my beads and I never worried around them much. Ponder's weakness was my wire, but that's a lot easier to deal with than tiny flying beads.

Since der Dekan has been living and jumping here, I managed to make two bead loomed pieces and I worked from very tiny stacks of beads which I refilled from the tubes constantly which didn't exactly made looming any quicker or real fun.
The other day I talked about bead cups and bead trays with a friend and she said it was a pity there weren't bead trays with holes for the cups to put in.
Unlike other beaders I don't work from a bead mat which has to do with my not working at a table.
I keep my bead cups to the side and pick the beads up with my fingers from where I put them on my needle. That may sound very awkward to others, but it works perfectly for me and I'm actually faster that way than with a bead mat.

Of course I know there are also all kinds of bead organizers, but they are quite flat and I don't trust somecat around that.
That's when I thought of my muffin trays (I got two of them at a super sale at the outlet, but only ever used one, anyway).
What if I tried putting the beads in there to keep them all together instead of using individual cups? And what if I found a box to fit the tray in to minimize the danger of a not so little cat stepping on one side of the tray and send it up flying?

It was practically a miracle that there was a parcel I hadn't opened up yet, otherwise I would have thrown the box out already. It looked the perfect size - and it was.
I cut off the flaps, but not completely, so the edges of the muffin tray would rest on them. It would have been nice if the tray had a hole on either side to attach it to the box, but it doesn't, so I used double sided tape.
To make the whole construction heavier and thus more stable, I had put a thermos I don't use anymore into the box. I wrapped it up in thick paper and added bubble wrap on the sides, so it won't move around.

Here you see Muffin Boy check it out because nothing here can go unsupervised by him. He's probably making plans now how to deal with this new challenge.

I think I can safely say that this is the weirdest piece of beading "equipment" I have ever put together and it's definitely not beautiful. If it works, though, I finally might be able to go back to work with more bead colors again without being stressed out too much and that's all that counts.

A lid for the tray would be perfect, but I couldn't find anything that worked and I don't want to buy a new tray just for the lid.
Maybe another box? Wait, I could just put my second muffin tray over it 😂
Anyhow, I'll let you know how it goes.

Getting ready for Christmas - Part 1

Vacation time, yay! I have a long list of things I should be doing and a list of things I'm actually looking forward to. I already know that the long list won't be much shorter at the end of my vacation, the other one, well, we'll see.

First on the list is decorating for Christmas. I'm by no means a big decorator and it has become even less since der Dekan moved in because some things are just too risky around him. I'm not going to put up my Moravian stars for example, cords are far too tempting for him.

So, last year I had a really hard time to motivate myself and ended up with a completely empty house hallway, but my little tree with its sparse decoration made me - and den Dekan - very happy.
I don't know if you have seen any of my last year's advent calendar posts, but it was sad that I couldn't put any of the ornaments I made on my tree. There is just too much time in there for den Dekan to have fun with them. They will get their chance to shine in the hallway this year, I just hope I'm not going to run out of space, but I can always leave out some of the not handmade pieces.
A friend suggested to make a garland for my beaded ornaments to hang from the ceiling, but my ceiling is too high for my taste. Ladders and I are not friends.

Today I started by putting up my little tree. This year, I got a special surprise for den Dekan although I knew of course that I will probably have to be stooping down a lot during the next few weeks, picking up ornaments and putting them back on the tree.
Last year he went absolutely wild with the gnome girl, so this year I got him a whole pack.



Of course Gundel is more than welcome to join in, but so far she has only paid a short visit to the tree. She usually starts playing with toys at night, though, so who knows what's going to happen.

My gift was a full success.
Der Dekan had to wait outside while I trimmed the tree with the victims, uhm, gnomes, my pineapple slices and some other unbreakables. I wanted to avoid a Pink Panther scene of me putting up ornaments on one side and him pulling them off on the other, working our way around the tree.
When I opened the door, der Dekan played it cool for about five seconds and then he went right in as expected.
About fifteen seconds in, the first gnome fell, seconds later the first pineapple slice, and right after that the second gnome. Then he threw himself between tree and the light arch and started pushing with all four.

Don't think he's constantly in the tree. He will launch an attack, go crazy for a bit, storm off and then come back to sleep in his Christmas bed next to the tree or his donut behind the tree - until the next attack. I have no idea what sets him off.
His second attack was swift and effective - four pineapple rings and four gnomes.
So far I haven't been lucky to get anything but blurry pictures of him in action, but here are a few general impressions.

And here's a rare Gundel sighting.
Good luck seeing anything in that photo but a dark shadow!