The Christmas season went by in an absolute blur this year--we didn't sit still for a minute and it took me well into the new year to recover from it! My parents arrived in early December and overlapped with Colby's parents and his grandmother who stayed until early January. But even before the visitors arrived, we started celebrating the season with Germany's famous Weihnachtsmarkten.
After celebrating Thanksgiving on Wednesday and Thursday, we left the following Friday to visit the Christmas markets in Passau and Wurzburg, two lovely towns along the Danube. Passau is an incredibly charming town filled with enough half timber buildings to populate an entire book of fairytales, and Wurzburg is home to the imposing Wurzburg Residenz which looms over the city. But we weren't there for sightseeing so much as shopping, eating and gluhwein drinking!
I had plans for visiting many more Christmas markets in light of this possibly being our last Christmas living in Germany, unfortunately, the weather, immune systems, and carsickness conspired against me to severely limit the number of markets visited. However, I did manage to get to what ended up being my favorite market yet, in Strasbourg, for a girls' day with one of my besties. My stomach was not too happy with me that day, so unfortunately I didn't get to eat many market treats, but I did bring home an amazing escargot, garlic and butter spread that we gorged ourselves on at Christmas, and saw one of the most beautifully decorated cities in Europe. The sheer number of lights, trees and adorable ornaments and holiday scenes was overwhelming. And at the end of the night we watched a beautiful animated short projected onto a building in a square with a Christmas tree rivaling that of the one in Rockefeller Center.
I mentioned the weather previously, and oh, the weather outside was frightful! We had more snow over the course of a couple of weeks than we've had in my two previous winters here combined. I'm not the biggest fan of that frosty precipitation, but Colby and the girls loved sledding and building snowmen, and I even had to grudgingly admit that it was prettier than rain puddles. Right up until the muddy slush accumulated, froze and refused to melt for weeks!
One of my favorite annual Christmas traditions is torturing my children with strange men dressed as Santa Claus. This year, I thought it might go a bit better since they seemed to be gaining an appreciation for the many works and wonders of old Kris Kringle, but our squadron Christmas party proved me wrong when we couldn't even get them to release their little girl claws from our shoulders to take a present from Santa. Annabelle did enjoy singing Jingle Bells with Hershey's Kisses and Charlotte got more comfortable with the present concept when we were a safe distance from the jolly old man in red.
Christmas and New Year's Eve were both low key affairs as we were recently returned from a week-long vacation in the Loire Valley where we had spent more than enough time wandering around in freezing mists. Colby and his parents braved the faaaaaar below freezing temps a few times for some daytrips, while my parents and I hunkered down inside where we have access to a thermostat. I also went on a girls' date with my Momsie to see Into the Woods, which we both very much enjoyed. My parents were already back in Louisiana by New Year's Eve, but the rest of us spent a lively evening playing cards and popping the cork on one of our nice bottles of champagne from our trip to the Champagne region before the local fireworks show exploded in our village.
We wrapped up our time with family with a quick hop across the border into Switzerland for an overnight in a beautiful old house built in 1819 and daytrips to Zurich and Lucerne. Colby and I had visited Lucerne previously, but Zurich was a first for us and it was a beautiful city, still decorated with Christmas lights, and I mostly enjoyed our time there despite the pouring rain! We said goodbye to Colby's parents the day after our return and then began a week-long marathon of laundry and cleaning.
And because we just can't seem to go more than a few weeks without importing a new family member, next up is my sister who is arriving next week for a quick (for us!) 10 day trip. We're making time for a weekend in Marrakech, planning another daytrip to Luxembourg to get our Laduree fix, and will be enjoying every minute we can get together before she leaves me again. After that, the guest room's open, so get your booking in as soon as possible!

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