Our Merry Christmas 2012

Let me share our Christmas Eve in photos. Let me share our gratefulness, too.

The Christmas Eve breakfast, but our expected guests had to beg off  at the last minute. They did arrive a bit later,
but just to remove the  thread from IC's injured toe.
We are grateful that our doctor neighbors took time off to work on IC's toe, otherwise, we would have been spending most of our day in the emergency room of the hospital.

And because we cannot go for a short hike in the woods as a family (because of IC's foot) which we traditionally do during Christmas Eve, the girls chose a game of Monopoly.
We are grateful for board games that include the participation of the whole family, and needed total interaction with each other.

We attended the Christmas children's mass in a nearby church and enjoyed the small kids portraying the Nativity scene with lots of singing and audience involvement.
We are grateful for the words of God, for the people who worked to let the kids understand the real meaning of Christmas, which is the celebration of the birth of our Lord. We are also grateful for the gifts that each of the children received after the mass.

Another tradition is visiting the cemetery. The girls love to say Merry Christmas to their oma and opa, (actually, they would scream from the car while we pass their house) and why should they stop when their gone? I told them they could still greet them, anywhere.
We are grateful for the lovely memories and we are keeping the love alive.

Our Christmas Eve dinner, stuffed trout for the kids and stuffed salmon trout for my husband and I. My husband and MC  were the busybodies in the kitchen.
We are grateful for the food, for the love involved in cooking them, for the appetite in enjoying them.

A German tradition that we are definitely keeping: singing Christmas carols in front of the Christmas tree before doing anything else. The girls have been practicing most nights and I am proud to say, they gamely finished all the songs with glee!
We are grateful for the music that adds more fun in praising you, that adds more fun in the family.

And the much awaited moment, opening the gifts, the dog received her bone and got busy, the girls savored opening theirs. In Germany, we open our gifts during Christmas Eve. And the gifts are not displayed before Christmas Eve because the Christkind brings them. I have become an expert in sneaking and placing the gifts under the Christmas tree without the girls' knowledge. And I think they appreciate the surprise, too.
We are grateful for the gifts that we received, for the fun in receiving and opening them, for the warm thanks, for the love involved in getting those gifts.

This year we have started another tradition, a pick a prize thingy that includes only silly and cheap gifts.
We are grateful for things that make us laugh.

The appetizer.

IC's stuffed trout with rice and potatoes.

MC's stuffed trout with rice and potatoes

The stuffed salmon trout for my husband and I

Happy girls :-)
We are grateful for happy girls who make us happy.

The traditional Gingerbread or in our case, the Hansel and Gretel witch house  that the girls normally receive from their oma and opa. We continued the tradition just because we wanted to keep the memories alive. And because it's fun watching them eating the house piece by piece by piece.
We are grateful for lovely memories that are made from family traditions.

The girls' favorite gifts: scrapbooks and homemade calendars. The best compliment coming from them: "Mama, the best gifts are the scrapbooks and the calendars, they were so beautiful. We would make sure to add pretty things in there, soon." And they proceeded to do just that.
We are grateful for simple things that encourage creativity.