Christmas Eve & Day

We spent Christmas Eve with our former neighbors who recently moved just across the border to Germany. It was so good to see them!!! They pulled out all the stops for a traditional Polish dinner and all I brought was this ghetto Pinterest dessert. Oh, and coconut cream pie. 

 Justyna, Maciej and Karolina and baby Kuba. It's been awhile and their new home is so lovely. We loved every minute we spent with them. Their Polish Christmas Eve feast included 12 dishes representing the 12 months of the year. If you wanted extra luck during a specific month, you ate extra of that dish. Justyna said during university, she'd make sure to eat extra helpings for the month of June so her exams would go well. Adam and I ate a lot of the fish cakes, so I think our March is going to be spectacular. Before dinner, we each had a piece of a communion wafer and we went around to each person and shook hands and wished each other specific and sincere well-wishes for the coming year. It was really special. I'll never forget it.

The kids were put to the test, eating the dark purple borscht broth with dumplings. They couldn't quite take to it. But they were ready for the rice krispie treats! I think it's been a steady stream of sugar ever since.

 The kids have missed Karolina so much. It was so fun for them to play together again.

Christmas morning! Since we all went to bed late, we all slept in until 8 am! Wow! It was awesome.

 German pancake, fruit, and sausage was the morning's meal.

The kids were excited by every little thing and I do declare they can stay these ages forever. 

Such a great couple of days. And don't forget the following holiday, Boxing Day, which was just another day of lazing about. We soaked it up and enjoyed the holiday immensely.

GNO in Metz, France

What's better than a girls' night out? A girls' night out anywhere in France, that's what!

Megan, Tara, Ali, and I (and Megan's 3-month-old, Franklin) drove to Metz, France one Friday night in December.

 It took way too long because of some wrong turns and traffic. But we were not sad. Because we were busy giggling. Grown women need to giggle, and a car stuck in traffic (oh, and a snowstorm), is a great place to do it! 

Immediately upon arrival, I scooped up some almond nougat. When in France, nougat is always a good choice.

 This cathedral is one of the best and sadly we were not there early enough to go inside.

 We made it in time for the food and the Ferris wheel but not the trinkets. Oh well. Again, nobody was sad. Because GNO!

 Ferris wheel fun:

Good times, ladies! And Franklin .... who is somehow not in any of these photos ??

December

Advent calendars, locked and loaded.

Picked up the tree at the Ikea parking lot.

Visited St. Nicholas at the mall.

Decorated the tree.

St. Nic visited Sienna's ballet class.

The kids did cute, short singing performances at school.

It snowed for lots of days. We ate it up.

We ice skated twice.

We lived our best lives at the Lux Christmas market over and over and over and over.

One of those times ice skating was with our friends Ali and Scott and their two boys.

Ali took our family picture and Sienna was cross-eyed in most of them because she can't help herself.

We squeezed our kids tight because this time of year makes us feel all the feels.

Ali took another photo of us in front of one of the great buildings of downtown Lux. And Sienna is cross-eyed. She's special.

We made sure to gorge on all our Christmas market favorites: hot cocoa in boot mugs, chichis (churros) dipped in Belgian chocolate, dampfnudel (a fluffy dessert dumpling with vanilla sauce and poppyseeds), spaetzle (pasta with cheese sauce), and a Lux specialty, gromperekichelcher (grompers for short, potato pancakes dipped in applesauce).

December: you were stellar.