Wonderful Christmas time

It snowed today!

I can’t believe that I could possibly get a “white Christmas” this year. It’s not to common to get snow for Christmas in Germany anymore, but this year it looks like it could happen… at least today it did :)

When I woke up, snow flurries were playing outside my window. It was beautiful.

Here’s a quick re-cap of the last two days:
I arrived on Tuesday morning. The flights were smooth and on time. I even managed to sleep a bit [well, maybe for like two hours …ahem]. My Dad and my cousin Nicole and my godson-to-be, Luca, picked me up at the airport. It was wonderful to see them! Luca, who is 14 months old now, is the most adorable and friendly little guy and even though he hadn’t seen me in 12 months, greeted me with a smile :)

We headed home, had some lunch [ barley stew that I had requested from my Mom… yum!] and in the afternoon my sister, granddad and greataunt came over to say Hello. Even though I had already been up for over 24 hours, I was holding up pretty well. Must have been the excitement! :)

In the evening, I attended a Christmas concert at my old Highschool. My Mom started singing in the teachers-parents’ choir a couple of months ago and I was happy to be able to see her first performance. It was a great evening!

After 11 hours of deep sleep, I awoke to a wonderful German breakfast. I was all by myself in the house, because my parents had their last day of work before the Christmas holidays. They came home around lunch time and we prepared Reibekuchen [potato pancakes] for lunch! Yummy!
In the afternoon we went downtown to run some errands and I spent the evening with my sister. We snuggled up on the couch, watched TV and talked. It felt so good!!

Today, I went Christmas tree shopping with my parents. In Germany, the Christmas tree is not put up before Christmas Eve and therefore it is waiting in the garage right now. When my sister and I were little, we didn’t get to see the Christmas tree before the evening. My Mom would decorate in the afternoon and when we came home from the Christmas church service, my sister and I had to wait in our rooms until my Mom rang a [hand held] bell and we were allowed to come down and see the tree and the presents. It was always a time of great excitement!
After we had grown up, “chores” were split between my sister and I … Nina put up the nativity scene and I decorated the tree in the morning of Christmas Eve. I am looking forward to being able to do this again this year! We play Christmas music, my Mom prepares stuff for our Christmas dinner and we drink tea and eat Christmas cookies :)

In the afternoon my sister and I went to see my greataunt for coffee and cookies. We used to do that every other week last year when I was still in Germany waiting for my Green Card and we always enjoyed and cherished the time together. Therefore, it was a very special afternoon :)

So far, so good… more to come!
I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas time as much as I do!