Our First Christmas in Germany

Hey, Kev's here. Christmas is something I keep in my heart all the year. I can listen to Christmas music at anytime and love it (unlike Heather). Christmas is Germany though is an all time new level, and as you can see from the festive Christmas Markets, the joy of this season truly prevails. This year was going to be something special in that we had a surprise for the kids, making sure that instead of doing lots of presents we simplify and invest in a memory!

So our Christmas always starts the night before with the nativity and ornaments. As we try to keep Christ central in our Christmas season, and after studying the miracle of the Master's birth, we dove into our ornaments, which was super fun given the variety of options available here. The kids reluctantly were sent to bed in order to dream of sugar plums, and we finished setting it all up. One of these days we won't be up until midnight doing this.

Christmas day began early as always - with laughter and happiness. It is probably the only day where the kids won't fight with each other. With giggles and pitter patter of feet (from Big sis even) the kids know we can't be disturbed until 7am. They all woke up at a ghastly hours, some of which were awake all night so excited for it (Big Sis!) they tackled their stockings.

Of course you can't start the day without rocking this years Christmas jammies!

We tackled the rest of the stockings and moved on to the little gifts.  The kids didn't get any gifts from us this year, but were blessed to get gifts from their grandparents, Krista Deguelle and their Aunt Adrienne and Uncle Paris Cluff.   The Cluffs got the kids some super awesome coloring stuff.  Monster and Little A were so excited about them.

So shopping for Zac now is so much fun because I simply just ask myself: would I want to play with this? If the answer is yes, then its good enough for him! Cue the trucks and car carriers! We didn't get the kids gifts, but they for sure still had a visit from Santa.  All their Santa Bags were filled and ready for opening in the morning. Monster had trucks and cars, of course. and Little A got some fairy garden creatures.  She has a cement well that is filled with soil in the backyard that she has cleaned as her garden, so it was fun seeing how excited she was about the fairy garden possibilities.

Big Sis got a Sunday outfit, with shoes and tights and all.  She was so happy to have an awesome church outfit.  M&M got some amazing art supplies which included brushes, paints and canvases.

Now came the time where the kids got a curve ball. The kids found a small box on the tree and inside as a small slip of paper.  We had planned out a scavenger hunt that intentionally made them go and up down the stairs every other clue (messed up right?) which was so funny. They had to listen to the clue and go to the room and try to find the next clue!

The clues all had to do objects that they would need or see on our trip.  It included finding the hot chocolate, a snow flake in the living room, gloves, helmets, and scarves to name a few.  By the fourth clue, Big Sis was guessing we were going someplace cold.

Finally they made it to the last clue, which told them to go back to the beginning, which was the Christmas Tree.  Under the Christmas Tree they found a big box wrapped up, and opened it to see where our First Christmas Adventure Memory would be. This year we had a trip to Austria planned and we were leaving in a couple of days to go and make the memory. We not only had never been skiing or snowboarding as a family, but we had never been Austria, so this was going to be a super fun adventure to have.  All the kids were super excited about the trip and wanted to start packing for it right away.

I know that Jesus Christ lives and this season reflects everyone that was perfectly embodied by Him: Love, civility, happiness, joy, peace, and I carry in my heart his sacred name that brings me the same!

The Many Adventures of our Christmas Elf, Angelina

Hello! This is M&M and I want to tell you about the adventures of our Christmas Elf, Angelina. Even though we all know now the secret of Santa and his elf, Monster doesn't. So it was still fun being able to help move her every night and have somebody/Monster have a blast trying to find her. 

We always try to never hide her in the same place twice. We had a fun time making her have a snowball fight with the avengers and DC characters, hide in the tree, get her tooth pulled under IV sedation with a real IV bag (Dad you are such a nerd!) bungle jumping, riding the animals, zip lining, and so much more! It is always fun getting Angelina out on November 30th and hiding her for the start of December. We always do some kind of "I'm Back" thing for the 1st of December. We drew on the windows for the first saying " I'm back!" with her on it. 

We always got our heads together to find the next place. Mom and Dad sometimes forget so us kids have to remind them, just do it ourselves, or ask them to help (which they do). One of our most favorite spot that we did for our elf was the snowball fight. We set them all up and when Zac woke up the next morning, he was so excited to see it! He was saying " Their having snowball fight! WOW! Look at Spiderman, he is upside down!" It was so cute! We hid her in different places all through out December 1 - 24. When Christmas Eve came, we did the goodbye thing. We wrote stuff like " I was so happy to see you again! I can't wait to come back next year!" It was sad putting her back in her box but we will be able to get her out again next year and find yet another 25 days worth of hiding places. 

Bernkasel-Kues Christmas Market

Hi guys. This is Big sis and I'm gonna tell y'all all about our adventure to the Bernkasel-Kues Christmas market!

I do have to say that the village looks much more different than what it looked like in the summer time. It looked so much more cute and more like a little winter wonderland. 

After we arrived, we just explored around the very big street of Christmas stands and a huge square of life size German Christmas decorations. 

While walking around and looking at everything, we found a house that looked so festive. As we got closer, we realised that it wasn't just any house, it was a huge house that was the towns advent calendar. 

Everyday, in December, at 7:00 pm, they would open one of the windows and display a painting of a Disney character. Before the reveal of the picture for that day, two old men would come out and sing German Christmas carols, concluding with a certain song that everyone seemed to know by us, and that day would be removed and the picture for that day was placed in the window. Fun tradition to participate in every night! Today, when we saw them display the new picture, which was Elsa and Anna from the movie "Frozen". It was funny to see the other 6 pictures on the house.

I did however wonder what it looked like completely filled up with Disney character. That would be something really funny to see. While walking around the town square, we found some little stands with kinder punch. What me and M&M found out was that every town had its own special twist to the kinder punch. Our town had the extra flavor of orange, another town's was pomegranate. This town was cherry. It's so much fun tasting all the different versions of the punch in different towns.

It's also super fun because we can keep the cups and each cup is different depending of the town. We have collected many different mugs. I don't think that we will need any new hot chocolate mugs for a while. Haha. 

One the way back to the car, because it was starting to get extremely cold, we found a huge life size German candle windmill. it mini form, it is a decoration usually only found in Germany and is made of wood with little decorations on the inside, often a scene of the nativity. And when you light the candle underneath the little windmill hands, it spins. 

As we were leaving, Monster really wanted to go on the merry-go-round, so he went on it for a ride. Once monster's ride was done we called it a day and went back home with some kinder punch mugs, and the Christmas spirit. Merry (early) Christmas!

  

France: An Anniversary in Strasbourg

Hey, Kev's here! For our 17th anniversary this year I thought to myself "How could I make this the most special anniversary yet?" Since moving to Germany a few months ago we had gone on trips to Belgium with the kids, have Austria secretly planned for Christmas (with kids) and London next year (with kids). Not dissing the kids, but man a trip just ourselves sure would be nice, but how?

So then came the striking idea: FRANCE! We haven't been there, but Paris would be to far away. Well since Christmas spirit is alive here now, and polling the best Christmas markets to attend, I heard about Strasbourg, and joyfully we could drive there and it was only 2 hours away! Win, so off we went. 

We situated the kids with promise of bribes and took off. We were so excited when we crossed the bridge in the middle of no where and crossed over into France: picture worthy moment! We had to snap this real quick because there was a semi truck coming! 

Strasbourg is a beautiful city in France, quant and pretty, and luckily today it wasn't unbearably cold. Unfortunately Heather had forgotten to take a dramamine before we left, and thanks to a million back road switchbacks so she was horribly sick. You can't tell it from the pictures but she felt horrible. So after finding a pharmacy, we bought something similar to dramamine and hoped for the best. She's such a trooper!

Talk about a super cute town. Everything was decorated primarily for the Christmas Market. We loved seeing the huge decorations over the restaurants and businesses.

Owing to my affinity for Cathedrals, we stopped first at Cathedral Notre Dame de Strasbourg. It was started in 1015 and took 424 years to finish, and for 227 years it held the record for the tallest building. It still does hold though the record for the highest extant structure built entirely in the Middle Ages. What's crazy though is that this church is one of the churches that had 74 of its stained glass structures stolen by the Nazis, and recovered and returned to the church by the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section of our military in the U.S. In case you haven't seen The Monuments Men it's worth it describing this adventure! What I love about this picture though is the tapestries. They are gigantic and 600 years old!

Inside during the Christmas season was the joy of the many creches and nativities that were on display. They highlighted many of the events during the nativity.

So this cathedral is famous for the astronomical clock. It's the 3rd clock that has been in this location since 1681, but this current clock has been there since 1843. It has a working perpetual calendar, orrery, which is a planetary dial, a display of the moon and the sun and the solar and lunar eclipses, all on one clock that spans three stories high. It has 18 inch figures of the Savior and his apostles, to include a life size rooster that crows three times at solar noon. This thing was huge and incredible to see.

Of course the outside architecture was amazing and so detailed as you can see from the prior front doors used a long time ago.

After going around more of the outside and seeing of the different sides of the cathedral we realized that it literally was the center of the Christmas market. We visited the different shops, enjoyed some crepes (yep - crepes in France) and some other fun little shops.

As the day progressed it so so nice to just spend time together, without the kiddos. Unfortunately the medicine we got for Heather didn't work well, and after a very well endured afternoon of nausea, we decided to call it and went home. So it was a shorter day, but just wonderful to spend time with my best friend! Happy 17th anniversary Love!