Christmas 2010

We had a really nice Christmas in our home this year. Since we've been married (2005), we've alternated our years celebrating Christmas between the US and Germany. And because of how things have worked out with where we've lived and where we've celebrated, this was only the second time we felt we could justify setting up a Christmas tree in our own home (see the first one here). However, we've been buying Christmas ornaments every year as we travel and visit places, so we actually had enough to fill the tree!

It has been sooooo nice to have a tree up!! It's already January 3rd, but I kind of want to hang on to it until the end of the week, if possible. We bought it the day before our Advent party, but decided we just didn't have the room to fit people AND a tree into our living room (not to mention the time needed to get it set up), so we put it up pretty late in the month. This was a major point of contention anyhow, so I'm glad it got set up! Stefan grew up setting up the tree on the day of Christmas Eve (traditional German approach, esp since Germans celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve anyhow), but I grew up setting up a tree weeks in advance. So this seemed to be a compromise of sorts...

A lot of our favorite ornaments are from our trips to the Nürnberg Christmas market with friends. Most of these ornaments came from Käthe Wolfhart, a beautiful and famous German company doing all things related to German Christmas decor. I had to smile hanging up the one with the rolling pin and Lebkuchen cookies and recipe; I tutor two neighbor kids in English and for our last pre-Christmas meeting I had them cut out and decorate some gingerbread mean from some dough I had ready. Then I made them review their body part vocab before letting them eat them. (We also watched the 20 min. Grinch Who Stole Christmas auf Deutsch, ha!) Later I washed and used the cookie cutters to finish making our tree skirt (see picture above).

Once again, I packed little gifts for the students in Stefan's homeroom class. He only has 21 students this year, which is a total gift in itself, but it still took me several days to make enough cookies to fill their bags AND have enough leftover for our Advent party (which happened the next day, so yeah, poor planning on our part - I was dead after that party!).

By the way, I totally failed at taking pictures at this year's Nürnberg gathering with the Prices and our missionary friends, Justin and Megan and their kids. Here are the two I did take. As usual, we were having too much fun to remember taking pictures! Two things: the yellow German Post carriages are there every year and you can pay to get a ride around the square. We've never done this, but we did purchase special edition stamps/cancellations from the Post's booth and sent a couple of cards to family. The other thing I managed to take a picture of was the international section of the Christmas markt. Partner cities from around the world can have a booth at the market, so I had to take a picture of the American one (from Atlanta). They were selling hard and sweet cider (their take on Glühwein), Reese's cups (!!!!), Jelly Belly candy canes, and other only-in-America treats. I have to say the Polish booth had some pretty amazing glass ornaments (Megan!) and the Greek booth was rocking some nice cheese - all in all, something fun and unexpected!

Stefan preached at the Christmas Eve service this year, so Stefan's mom and brother sat by me as we enjoyed the service. Our choir did a lovely job (almost everybody in our church is musically gifted, pretty amazing for such a small group!) and it was a great service. Afterwards we went to Stefan's mom's place in Giessen and had a fondu (or fondue? I find both...) dinner. I had never had meat fondu, so it was pretty fun!

Stefan's mother uses real candles on her tree (another German tradition), so after dinner we lit the candles and started opening presents. We really did have a ridiculous amount of presents, but then we all seemed to wrap each and every tiny thing - and the dog got presents as well! It was a really nice evening together and we all had a good laugh at one present Frank gave to Stefan and I: a set of winter hubcaps! We lost a hubcap on the way to church one Sunday a few months ago and Stefan was pretty miffed about it because we only use hubcaps when the winter tires are on. So it was pretty funny that Frank remembered this and sprung for a new set we could enjoy! (It's one of my pet peeves when I see cars driving around without hubcaps, go figure!)

On Christmas Day -or the first Christmas day, as the Germans would say-, Stefan and I opened the rest of the gifts my family had sent, in addition to our stockings (this is one of the benefits of celebrating a German-American Christmas!). We hosted the big Christmas lunch at our place this year, taking advantage of our kitchen and dishwasher, and gave Stefan's mom a break. Frank and Antje came over with the dog and we spent the afternoon and evening together.

I have to say the Christmas lunch was pretty stressful...it was our first time making a large piece of meat, and we didn't even get as large a turkey as we asked for! I used a brine for our little 7lb turkey and it was a total hassle. In the end we decided it wasn't worth it (we must've done something wrong), so next time I'll just do what I normally do for a roast chicken. In fact, Stefan said we should just roast a bunch of chickens next time, ha! We also forgot that we didn't have a proper carving set of our own AND we forgot to ask his mom to bring hers, so it turned into a hack-fest at the table. Oh well. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great, either. Actually, the bird was the only downer, everything else about the lunch was great!

In addition to the turkey, our table sported the traditional German dishes of Rotkohl and Semmelknödeln, which came from a jar and a box, respectively. Aren't we gourmands?! Apparently this is how Stefan's mother has always done it, so since he was in charge of these dishes, that's what he did, too. Cop out. I made homemade harvest-style stuffing, sweet potato casserole for the lunch, and two pumpkin pies and pecan tassies for dessert (in addition to the myriad of Christmas cookies we had around the house).

So it was a really busy Christmas season, yet it was all totally worth it! Next year we're due to spend Christmas in the US, but we're kind of wanting the US to fly to us to celebrate here next year.... hint, hint! Summer really seems to be a much more fun season to visit people anyhow....we shall see!