New Year’s Eve in Serfaus

Wow guys, I just have to tell you what went on here on New Year’s Eve … what a drama! The last day of the year, everyone was super excited and could hardly wait for midnight. Here in Serfaus we had fantastic winter weather and the snow was perfect! Our guests in the “Gut Darrehof” apartment were keen skiers. The girls always came to the stables in the evening to help out. They kept telling me how great the slopes were and how much fun skiing is.

Oh, sorry, I actually wanted to tell you about New Year’s Eve. The day went by and I was hopping around in the paddock with my friends, having fun in the deep snow. Finally it got dark and we got our yummy feed … but then things started to get strange. What on earth was our boss doing??? He just left half of the feed out in the stable aisle in front of our boxes … what’s that all about … a diet at the end of the year!?!?!?

Anyway, I was nibbling on my hay with full concentration when suddenly a loud bang made me jump … Goodness me, what was that??? Nervously I turned around in my box … Nena, our wise old Nena, then explained to me that I shouldn’t worry, the two-legged ones have this silly, pointless custom where they try to chase away the old year with particularly loud and colourful things. They shoot these things into the sky, it smokes and stinks terribly and it makes an almighty racket!

Well, if Nena says so … but what if one of those things flies into our stable, that must be dangerous! With a queasy feeling in my tummy I carried on eating my hay … but it was soon gone and my stomach still wasn’t full! To make matters worse, the banging got more and more frequent and louder … all around us the sky lit up in every colour. In the end it got so unbearable that I just wanted to get out of my box. Abira in the box opposite was freaking out and even our experienced Nena was no longer feeling very comfortable.

And just when it was at its very worst, the stable door opened and the light came on. Oh, that immediately made things feel a lot better; the flashes of colour in the night sky didn’t seem quite so bright and threatening anymore. Kind Christa came in … “Oh my darlings, are you scared! I’m so sorry, I actually overslept, I wanted to come much earlier. Thank goodness the fireworks woke me up. Come on, I’ve got something nice for you.” And she started shovelling the rest of the hay into our boxes … hmm, Christa didn’t seem stressed at all, and the hay smelled so wonderfully tempting … well then, maybe it wasn’t all that bad after all! Once the others also started munching the delicious hay, I calmed down too and enjoyed my tasty midnight snack. By the time we had finished the hay, all that banging outside had stopped.

Feeling totally relaxed, I said to Christa: “Oh, thank you for coming, I was really very scared. But what about all the animals in the forest? There’s nobody there to calm them down and they have no idea what’s going on! The poor rabbits and deer and foxes and badgers and …” And with those sad thoughts I finally fell asleep – and only the next day did I really start to feel happy about the new year.