Our Christmas in Pictures

I know it's a bit late, but I thought I'd share some of our lovely Christmas moments from this past (eek!) year, since I took a much-need technology break while on vacation and haven't gotten the chance to talk about the holidays yet.

Last bits of my Advent calendar, including a vanilla bean put to use in our homemade eggnog.

 A decadent mocha to start my vacation off right.

Tanz der Vampire (best musical ever!), our Christmas theatre family outing for the year.

 German Christmas window deocrations. The right one was handmade by Micha's grandpa.

Christmas cookies and homemade eggnog. With more than just a dash of bourbon.

 Presents. Guess which one I wrapped and which ones came from Micha...

Micha's momma's lovely tree with traditional candle-style lights.

Cheese fondue and potato salad for Christmas eve dinner.

Life, the boardgame, can teach you valuable lessons.

- Emily's advent calendar present was quite possibly the best thing I've ever been given. I wish every month came with a countdown full of gifties!

- Did you know that Germans open presents on Christmas Eve? Growing up, our family did too (though not because of our Grandma's German roots, but rather out of impatience :), so it's not a big change for me. The 24th is the most important Christmas day here and the 25th and 26th are called the first and second days of Christmas. You can't beat three days of celebration.

- I don't have pictures of the goose and rabbit feast on Christmas day; I was too stuffed to bother. But it was deeeelicious, as always (I stick to the goose). Klaus's (Micha's momma's boyfriend) daughter and small family joined us too, reminding me that "the more the merrier" is so very very true during the holidays.

- We're not really ones to stick to tradition (I'm too forgetful for traditions anyways), so we've been varying up a lot of Christmas activities the past few years (since Micha's parents divorced) and it's proved to be great fun. Instead of a traditional Christmas ballet (last year we went to the Nutcracker) we all went to see Tanz der Vampire this time. (Because any musical with "Total Eclipse of the Heart" as the theme song is the best thing ever, in my book.) Instead of wurst and potato salad, we opted for cheese fondue this year on Christmas Eve (last year it was raclette). I'm already excited to see what we'll come up with next year.

- Homemade eggnog, however, is one new tradition that I would like to seriously enforce. This year, we used this recipe from the Fashionably Bombed girls and I cannot recommend it highly enough. (It's even better the next day.). The fresh vanilla beans probably helped too.

- You can learn a lot from the game of Life. Such as, buy lots and lots of life insurance. Don't bother with university. Or, the highest income to shoot for is $30,000 a year (that dates the game just a wee bit, I'd say)! Plus, forget being a lawyer, artists get all the perks.

I hope your Christmas was fantastic as well! Now I can't wait to share some pictures from our fabulous, snow snowy New Year's Eve with you later this week.

p.s. Still no word when our camera lens will be fixed but I'm getting more and more worried by the day.