Christmas in February

Christmas 2013 will forever be remembered as the Christmas where the person formally known as Amy threatened to cancel Christmas and narrowly avoided telling her three year old son that Santa does not exist as a result of prolonged lack of sleep. 

To sum our Christmas up, I lost my shit.  

The saddest part about this was the fact that the incident that pushed me over the edge was there were no new slippers under the tree with my name on them.

True story. 

I tried to blame the Zero REM sleep combined with two cups of Chad's extra strong coffee for the meltdown but in hindsight, it does not make me feel any better.

I think back on Christmas morning and all I see is the three sleepy faces looking peculiarly up at me as I go on some non-sensical tirade about how noooobbooodddyyy cares, everyone is an ingrate, our Korean kitchen can just go up in flames because it burned my dutch baby and how much I. HATE. CHRISTMAS.

By mid-morning, I just wanted to curl up and die with embarrassment.

By dinner time, I wished I could have started the entire day over.

By bedtime, I was happy to see December 25, 2013 come to a close.

Before falling asleep (but after I apologized to my husband), I said a silent prayer asking for forgiveness. I prayed to be a better me tomorrow and everyday leading up to Christmas 2014. 

And I may have put a plug in there about new slippers as well.

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And because I don't want anyone thinking I'm a worse mother than I (admittedly) was on Christmas, I did do a little 1st birthday party for our Ava.
"Party" is used loosely here as it was more of a glorified play-date but it was good food, great company and some Christmas cookies were decently decorated so overall it was a nice birthday for her.

So far my quiet prayer for 2014 has been answered (and I got new slippers in the mail a week after Christmas) in case you were wondering.

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“You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don't help.” 
― Bill Watterson

Calvin & Hobbes

Germany, we love you, we miss you BUT...

we're so over the fact that it took you six months to bill us for our electricity in 2012 and your freaken' freezing winter.
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Did I mention we miss you?

Photos from our last 2 days in Germany, 01/2013

Does that mean Fall is over?

We heard threats of snow for Saturday.

 I'm not going to lie when I say I wasn't too concerned about it because I find that the weather man in our area often lies. LIES, I tell you. 

However, after waddling to the bathroom early this morning, one glance out our opaque window and it looked suspiciously... white.  After a thorough investigation (which required me to remove a bald Orchid, glass jars and 40 rubber duckies off the windowsill), I found that it was indeed snowing. 

It still is in fact and the only way to deal with snow in October (i.e. previously my favorite season when it was still Autumn) is to go outside and frolic in it until your nose is quite pink and null of any feeling, come inside to hot chocolate and cuddle close with your family.

It doesn't necessarily make up for the fact that those lovely gold leaves will be brought to the ground a little sooner than expected but it makes things a little more bearable. 

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so long German Fall! 

Ulm Christmas Market

I know the holiday season has officially come to an end and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm glad.

I didn't even wait till New Years to remove our Christmas tree. I couldn't take another day of pine needles and drooping branches. I love Christmas.... I love Christmas trees... I love the ornaments, wreaths, baking....

for one month.

Then I want my house back to normal- decoration free, wrapping recycled, cookies distributed.

The end.

(Until November 25th of next year.)

There is one holiday season practice that never gets old... those Christmas markets.

I do currently get nauseated at the thought of gluhwein but that should pass in the next few weeks and I will miss all that comes with German (and French) Christmas Markets.

With that said, I have a few market visits that I didn't get to cover before Christmas... one of them being our visit to the Ulm market.

I had heard mixed reviews about Ulm's market but we had been to Stuttgart's twice at that point and the weather wasn't that great so we chose Ulm because it was new and only an hours drive away.

I've only been to Ulm one other time but I enjoy the city. I think it's pretty nice and they have a lot of shopping. You know... if you're into that kind of thing.

Anyways...

I had heard their market was small but I wouldn't consider it so.

It surrounded the Ulm Minster (um, which is quite large) so it was big enough for me.

Unfortunately, it was practically freezing and the babies stopped cooperating so we ended up going into a Tapas bar and spending the rest of the evening there.

Then we went to Ikea and Toys 'R' Us before calling it a night.

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Birds are the mascots of Ulm. The tale goes that the timbers of the church wouldn't fit through the gates around the walled city until the builders saw a bird fly through the gate, holding a twig, by turning it to a 90 degree angle. After rotating the timbers, the building of the cathedral could continue...

Read more about the Ulm Christmas Market here.

Merry Christmas...

to you & yours.

May it be merry & bright.

And White (here's hopin').

Frohe Weihnachten. Joyeux Noel. Buon Natale.

-Amy

Ludwigsburg Christmas Market (year 2)

I love Sundays.

I have my last batch of Christmas Cookies 2011 baking in the oven and tomorrow's dinner in the crock pot.

Purse is by the door and house is clean.

Sunday is the only day during the week where I feel remotely prepared for the following day: Rhett's outfit is picked out for daycare, my toe nails are clipped, my keys are by the door, etc.

As soon as my alarm goes off at 0500 tomorrow morning, it's pretty much downhill from there in terms of organization.

With that said, I don't know how or if we'll get to anymore Christmas markets this year as many of them will start closing shop before Christmas Eve.

We were no where near last year's record (8 was it?) but that's life.

I hit all my favorites this year so I'll keep trying to remind myself: quality, not quantity.

And, who knows? Maybe there is one more German Christmas in my future.

We will have to wait and see.

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One evening after work, I took my parents to the Ludwigsburg Christmas Market. It's one of my absolute FAVORITE markets.

It wasn't as romantic as last year because there wasn't a snowflake in sight but it was a tad bit warmer and I'm okay with that.

Oh and I was with my parents not my husband which limits the romanticism one can have...

moving on...

The first stop was to get some gluhwein. Can I tell you I thought their mugs were super cute and they now make a lovely addition to our gluhwein mug collection.

After having a drink and standing by the fire, we slowly (systematically) made our way through the market.

I always enjoy a market that mixes practicality with Christmas and both my mom and I purchased German Christmas cards for a really good price.

Like last year, they had fleece, antiques, and food.

Of course, I paid no mind to all the other food booths because I only wanted the Ludwigsburg Christmas Market falafel.

I dreamt about them all year.

The lovely woman who makes all the empanadas and falafel (by hand) has lived all over the world... including London and Argentina. I love people with interesting stories.

We ordered a beef and a corn empanada and 2 falafels- devouring them all.

Rhett loves him some empanada.

Before heading home, we shared a germnudel (filled with plum) topped in a vanilla sauce with cinnamon & sugar. Just like last year.

Y.u.m.

If someone told me I could only visit one Christmas Market next year, I'd pick Ludwigsburg.

First stop, falafels & empanadas.

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I now know the difference between a dampfnudel and a germnudel.

Just wanted to clarify that.

See last years post here.

Need more info? Go here.