Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from both of us to all our friends and family! We hope you are having some wonderful celebrations, good social get-togethers, and delicious food for the holidays.

Christmas is drawing to an end over here and we have had a really nice day. We went for a refreshing (read: cold!) walk along the river then had a nice home-cooked Christmas dinner.


No snow here, sadly, but there's enough frost on the ground to make it a semi-white Christmas!


Our "official" Christmas portrait. Sorry for the extreme close up!


Some German Christmas decorations. The climbing Santa is very popular, but this is the first set of antlers we've seen!

We had planned to get a small tree (that tradition is big here, and in fact that's where we Americans got it from), but never got around to it and weren't sure how to dispose of it anyway. Holiday atmosphere was provided by our somewhat strange LED Christmas lights made in Sweden and a mix of German and American Christmas hits streaming over internet radio.

During our walk we went by a restaurant and lots of nicely-dressed families were heading in, so eating out looks to be a pretty popular choice. I wish we could share more inside info on German Christmas traditions, but we haven't seen many people out and about and our landlord and his family seem to have gone out for the day. We did see wrapping paper and a box in the hallway this morning, so we know somebody got a color laser printer for Christmas.

Cooking dinner was a bit of an adventure, as we had a mix of German, British and American products, all of which use different measurements! And some of the directions are in German. Also we have no measuring cups. So I used a beer glass that came with the apartment and has a fill line marked at 0.2 liters, and converted everything as best I could. I haven't had to do that much math since college!



Thankfully it all turned out just fine. We had tasty German ham, potatoes, gravy and green beans from our local supermarket plus some American favorites brought over by Ron or bought in London - Ocean Spray cranberries, Libby's sweet potatoes, Jet-Puffed marshmallows and canned pumpkin for pie.

We only realized we needed a pie pan yesterday, and fortunately the major stores are open for shortened hours on Christmas Eve. Interestingly, they had no pie pan like I'm used to - only pans for tarts, quiches, pizzas, and onion pies. So I ended up with two small heart-shaped pans meant for onion pies. They worked, but added an extra challenge to my rusty pie-making skills.



Today the only stores open are gas stations (the Autobahn is sacred and they don't mess with smooth travel no matter what day it is). This came in handy because we ran out of Diet Coke, which is a bit of an emergency in the Joyal household. David ended up having a fun errand, as the gas station man was thrilled to practice his English and was absolutely delighted when David wished him a "Merry Christmas."

We've just enjoyed a slice of heart-shaped pumpkin pie and are now settling down for a cozy evening of movies. Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and we look forward to seeing many of you for the holidays next year!