Parsberg and the Nürnberg Christkindlesmarkt

We just spent the weekend down in Parsberg, which is almost an hour outside of Nürnberg. It was so fun to spend a weekend with Britton, Sarah, and little Madeline! Saturday morning we surprised them with candy in their shoes for Nikolaus Tag. Madeline spent the rest of the morning checking other shoes for candy and we filled hers up again so she could unpack it all over, very cute!
Then we went to the Nürnberg Christkindlesmarkt, which it's website says "where the Christ child is at home". I only just now saw the website and, after our visit, actually think the Christ child would feel FAR from home if He visited it!
I viewed it as a market celebrating German Christmas traditions with food and gifts. With that in mind, even a cold and drizzly Saturday was fun since we spent it exploring with friends. We periodically would warm up with mugs of Glühwein and Kinderpunsch and everybody brought mugs home for souvenirs.
There was a fun children's section where we enjoyed the scenes playing on the rooftops of booths
and the beautiful double decker carousel with wild animals and even a hot air balloon at the top!
We went into a Käthe Wohlfahrt shop and admired all the beautiful wooden Christmas decorations.

This will be the first year that we'll have our own Christmas tree (usually we're away too long to justify a tree), so we have been collecting ornaments. I'll feature most of them in posts to come, but here are 3 for now: a beehive with a honey bear and bees hanging below it (too cute)

a birdhouse with birds flying beneath it (just like our birdhouse on the balcony!)

and Noah's Ark, with fish swimming beneath it. Notice the 2 elephants, giraffes and other creatures. We like how the dove is sitting on the roofline.

Saturday night we hit the Post before heading back to their place. Post is the base were Britton works as a chaplain. We went to the PX to grab a copy of the Narnia film, Prince Caspian, which Stefan and I missed in the theaters. We loved it!

Sunday morning Sarah made an awesome breakfast and then we went back to the Post and attended chapel. I really enjoyed singing some Christmas hymns (from a hymnal nonetheless!) and having the opportunity to partake of Communion in a way I'm more used to. When the offering plates went around the little boy sitting in front of us was waving a paper in the air, and at first I wondered 'what is that?' and then I realized it was a US dollar bill! I was just not used to seeing US currency in Germany!

Funny - and it goes to show how a physical flight overseas automatically prepares you to see things differently, but driving 4hrs south within Germany just doesn't! It was like being in and out of a movie or something. All transactions on the base occur in US currency (grocery shopping, gas, barbar shops, church offerings, etc) and anything they do off base (shopping in German shops, etc) is done with Euros! It was very surreal seeing how Britton and Sarah live in a home off the base, a typical German townhouse, but they have 120 volt plugs in some of their walls and they get some US tv stations! I can't tell you how WEIRD it was to watch a US football game on tv while looking out the window next to it was a German looking lady coming out of her German looking house to walk her dog. Talk about messing with your mind!!!

Needless to say, it was a great visit with good fellowship. We enjoyed seeing where Britton works and learning a little more about what a military chaplain does. As we saw the chapel where they worship, heard him answer his on-call cell phone, and hefted Britton's body armor when visiting his office, we had a new kind of respect for the type of ministry role he and Sarah serve in. Britton says the military is an 'unfortunate reality', and as we saw a group of Humvees loaded with camo-clad guy in the gun turrets heading off for exercises, we agreed.