Translation of optional in German

We want to fly there again on Christmas, depending on Jenny's work. Maya entered kindergarden last week, and there were a lot of tears (mainly by her mother and not by herself. I guess that is natural.
Sometimes this is an outcome of personal problems or incidents. For example, there could be a crime commited by someone of a certain origin. The consequence could be that the victims would blame an entire community.
I rarely heard someone speaking so bad about his nation, but again, it wasn't my business. We closed the lights at midnight and hoped for a few hours of sleep. The train shaked and threw us around in our beds.