How I spent my Holiday Vacation

This year, being our first away from family at the holidays, was different. Not necessarily in a good or bad way, just out of the normal. For Thanksgiving, we spent the time with our new good friends and another family, so it was *almost* like being home. I didn't get to do my usual Black Friday shopping, but I must admit that was pretty nice. Sleep is good.

So December rolled around, and the German Christmas markets opened. We spent the majority of our Saturdays hitting up all the markets we could and collecting all their neat little mugs. I believe the atmosphere here at Christmas time must rival that of The North Pole. I cannot even explain it correctly. I wouldn't do it justice. All I can do is show you some pictures and encourage you to visit sometime. (We have an apartment above our house just waiting for visitors!) 

yum--chocolate covered marshmallows 

Just a ferris wheel in the middle of the pedestrian district

Just a few of the mugs from various markets

Christmas pyramid at the Wiesbaden Market

A stall selling lanterns at the Wiesbaden Market 

The Wiesbaden Sternschnuppenmarkt (Twinkling Star Market)

The challenge presented to us this year was shopping. We take advantage of Amazon's free "two day" shipping, but that actually takes about 2 weeks on a non holiday schedule. So add in to the mix that everyone and their mother are ordering and receiving packages, and we were looking at more of a 3 1/2 week delivery time. So, with that in mind, I started really shopping around Thanksgiving. Of course at that time no one has any inkling of what they'd like, so it makes the task a smidge harder. But I did it. I had all my ordering done by the early weeks of December. Of course Amazon loves to mail their orders as box 1 of 19, so the mailroom guy hates me. Literally. He told Josh to let me know "it's getting out of hand". He knows me and my box number just by face. I'm pretty sure that's a bad thing (especially since I've only actually been in the mailroom a hand full of times). 

The shipping in was mostly fine. The shipping out however, not so much. Our parents' packages arrived sometime into the new year, rendering those advent calendars useless. "Oh well," my dad says, "we can still eat the chocolate." My thinking, precisely. Love that guy. 

Our actual Christmas was pretty laid back. We opened a few gifts on Christmas Eve to try and hold the kids over. Mostly clothes, so they were still hyped up. We got fancied up and made ourselves a nice little dinner, consisting of yummy crockpot turkey and some sides. The next morning we did the whole Santa thing, and Josh's mom even woke up early/went to bed late to skype us.  We had a big buffet style breakfast and spent the day in our jammies. Usually we are kind of go,go,go with our day. So this was actually a nice break. And we got to watch my sisters and parents open their gifts, which we never get to see at home, since we're in a different time zones now. FaceTime is a beautiful thing.

All in all, it went nice and smooth considering we are about 4,500 miles away from home. We definitely miss everyone so much, but you know what they say....home is where you make it. 

Or was that a line from Joe Dirt....