Life: Idiotropic

20th -- Lazy Saturday... painted our salt dough ornaments a little more and decorated them with jewels and puff paints. Elise made this very fancy yellow airplane for some lucky family member. (Ok, so I was really truly ahead of the game... holiday boxes almost ready and pretty much filled just as December hit... and then life hit warp speed and I've been behind every since. New Year's boxes will, with luck, be mailed hopefully may be by New Years. Yes, that's when cards will go out too... again... with luck.)

21st -- A complete blur... I know that we must have done at least one Christmasy thing... but I can't remember what. :(

22nd -- I went to a friend's home to make home made tamales - a delicious chicken version and a spicy pork version. It was the first time I'd ever made them and it was a messy process, but fun! Hint - spread the masa on the smooth side of the corn husk. It's quite disastrous to try to pry the filling from the bumpy side once their cooked. I have to make these myself and experiment a bit before posting the recipe with photos... but I think it's do-able. Really, I'd expected home made tamales to be a lot more impossible.

Anyway... I cooked, the little girls played - and then we all went shopping. Tiara spent the day with friends at Snowworld skiing - indoors - but it's better than nothing and a bunch of teenagers can have a great time doing just about anything as long as they're together.

23rd -- The girls and I went to the Aachen Christmas market. Today was the last day of the market and most likely my last time here since we're moving this summer. It was beautiful and sad, so I took a bunch of pictures. We had our last market meal - frites and bratwurst, wandered around the market, shopped a little, found a nice shaving set for Kirk in a 1600's house that used to be a basket maker on Korbstrasse, ran into several friends, listened to street musicians, and warmed ourselves with coffee at Starbucks. (I really wanted to soak up the atmosphere a bit more and join the masses standing at tiny tables with warm glasses of dark plum coloured Gluewein, but with the girls, I just couldn't do that. Sad. Oh well... the sangria in Spain will be a nice substitute.) It was sunny and beautiful, not horribly cold. Felt good to be there and people watch.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=79612&l=72ef5&id=674507268

When we got home, we decorated our annual gingerbread house. This year we had snowmen, moose, and trees to decorate as well.


















24th - I wanted to go to Maastricht, but it was below 0 and I had two at home with colds who didn't need to be colder. So, it was a very nice relaxing day of Christmas movies and last minute elf errands. Arianna helped me cook a pasta dinner, the girls played, and in the evening, the little girls and I made new Christmas stockings together while watching It's a Wonderful Life. That movie still makes me cry.

25th -- Merry Christmas!!!

Luci's letter to Santa:


Luci saw Santa in November and didn't know what she wanted. Then, she figured it out, wrote 3-4 letters to Santa (one is above), and came to me so worried that she didn't tell Santa what she really wanted.

It was especially fun to play the elf on Christmas eve late setting everything out under the tree. And it was just perfect to wake up in the morning to my sweet girls asking if they could go downstairs and see if Santa had come, and to hear the happy squeals getting louder as they ran all the way upstairs to tell me excitedly that they'd gotten American Girl dolls for Christmas.

Tiara was kind and got up early and we all sat around the tree together. It was a happy Christmas and we were all spoiled.

All day the girls played and watched American Girl movies. All day I relaxed and cooked. In the evening we had some friends over for a quiet dinner together. We had our first taste of Yorkshire pudding compliments of my friend, Maria who'd lived in England, ham, blue cheese rosemary scalloped potatoes, and a few other things. Pumpkin cheesecake with a gingersnap crust for dessert.

26th -- A cookie party with friends was enough to mark the day as special and still allow a lazy day to relax. The kids are especially happy having a few days at home. And I'm using the time to clean and sort though things.

27th -- Another sunny, beautiful, below freezing day that is better spent inside (2 sick people here), so friends stopped by in the evening for coffee, cheesecake, and a visit. And the rest of the day has been carefree and stress free.