Christmas in Germany...

...was actually more fun than I thought it would be. I did miss my family though (and the first white christmas in 5 years in Kansas which was actually a blizzard that shut down our annual christmas eve celebration).


We did have a bit of snow here. Made for some pretty pictures.



Nora's back yard


We met Daniel's parents, brothers and the Trautner family for a goose dinner on the 23rd. Here's Daniel with Nora and Walter.




Christmas eve we did our last minute shopping (the line for the checkout at REWE grocery began at the front door and snaked around the store) and then headed over to Nora's. Here's an ornament on her tree - Daniel drew it when he was 11 years old.



The major drama was when Chou Chou attacked Carl's hand.



The victim



The perp


When all the guests arrived, we did our gift exchange. I ended up with a basket of homemade goodies from Nora's friend Hardi and Daniel got a Vanessa Paridis CD from Nora's friend Doris. Ruth's daughter Rebekah got Daniel's gift of chocolate and Helga's son HW got my gift of dessert tea, hot chocolate and a mug. Then we had fondue for dinner.


Florian, HW, and Daniel relax after the meal



Christmas day we hosted a lunch for Daniel's father Micha, stepmother Mietzie and all 4 brothers. I made sweet potato cassarole, baked potatoes, and brownies and Micha made steaks and brought salad. We had drawn names for this gift exchange and we opened them youngest to oldest and I took a picture of each.



Frederick (and a good view of our tree!)




Carl


Florian




Daniel


Steffen (with his Zombie from Daniel)



Micha





(according to Daniel, Mietzie does not want her pic to be posted, so I am honoring her wishes)


Next Christmas, Frederick will be in pilot school in Phoenix so not only will I be home for christmas but we might just bring the whole German crowd with us again.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and thanks for reading my blog this year.