Hannele and the Maibaumklau

Germany’s lockdown rages into the seventh month (doing absolutely nothing to stop new infections, ho hum). The traditional Bavarian May 1 activities–raising a Maibaum, meeting in the Biergarten to enjoy food and music in the fresh air with friends and family–are forbidden again this year. (As it’s dark and rainy outside, there was a good chance of postponement, but a weather delay is so different than a blanket government ban.)

This prompted Hannele and the other bears to make their own private Maibaum, and sit around it all night drinking beers. This is a Bavarian tradition called the Maibaumwache, and it’s necessary because there is another tradition of attempting to steal your rivals’ tree away. The tree is not half bad when you consider they were working only with materials they could scrounge up around the house…

Everything was fine when I went to bed. But then I woke up to this:

Maybe they should have stayed up all night drinking coffee instead of beer. What’s that paper? Oh. It’s a ransom note, signed “Oink” and “Firebreath”.

This is clearly an amateur heist. The thieves forgot to give a time and place for exchanging “a lot of beer” for the tree.

The bears found a case of beer, and commenced with some rude shouting. Eventually, the perps emerged:

All the stuffies decided to share the beer and the Maibaum, and they’ve been raging in the living room the whole day.