It's Christmas Eve and we're ready to celebrate!!
We have already eaten a yummy breakfast of Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread and Maia is napping upstairs. We have sweet potatoes cooking in the oven for our casserole, the turkey is on the grill, and the wine is mulling on the stove. I will have recipes to share with you soon!
Have you ever had mulled wine? If you haven't, you're seriously missing out!! But don't worry, I'll post a recipe for you so you can make your own. The house smells amazing as it simmers on the stove and it is the most delicious, warm drink for a beautiful Christmas night.
We have our tree up and the presents are underneath. We've had a little trouble keeping Maia out of the gifts. She's fascinated by the wrapping paper with the bright colors and big bows on top! She's been delivering gifts to me all morning. I can't wait to see her reaction tonight when we Skype with our families in the States and she gets to open them!
She did manage to weasel a gift out of us already, though. We bought her a book and stuffed animal from Kohl's Cares. It's a book about Christmas and the stuffed animal is the Lion from the story. I wrapped the book, but thought the lion would look cute with a bow on his neck. Apparently Maia agrees, because the second she saw him she couldn't stop dancing and saying, "Ooo! Ooo!" like a little monkey. Here she is in my lap with her lion.
She's so happy with him. She's been carrying him all around the house. I keep putting him back under the tree and she keeps taking him with her. Oh well! I'm glad she likes my choice for her gift!
Notice who else is in the picture? Ah, the crazy dogs. They don't want to miss out on any of the Christmas festivities. Budva (on the left) and Inmate (on the right) are two of our four-legged friends. Mitties (the cat) spends most of his day hiding from Maia. We can't really blame him for that!
Now, let's talk about our tree. Have you ever had trouble finding a tree that's "just right?"
Sure. We all have.
One year we cut our own tree down off the lot. Other years, we've looked through the pre-cut trees, searching for the perfect one. It's harder here than you might imagine. Here's why:
German's seem to like trees that we, as Americans, would consider Charlie Brown trees. You know, the ones that you can see through because the branches are so far apart? So when we shop for our Christmas tree, we have to look for an American style tree…which usually takes a while!
Think I'm kidding? Take a look at these trees:
Last year my family came to visit from the States but got stuck in London for 7 days because of the snow. (You can read about that fiasco HERE.) We had planned on going with my family to cut down our tree when the arrived, but when December 23rd came we knew we had to just go get any tree for our home. We ended up with a tree off the lot…a very German Christmas tree.
(Try not to laugh!)
This is honestly a very traditional tree for this area! It would not have been our first choice, but this time last year we were just trying to put something up to celebrate the season. It was cute…in a Charlie Brown kind of way!
This year we took Maia to pick out a tree and made sure that we found one that had more of an American look.
I think Maia picked a great tree, don't you?
Want to know the best part? Our tree cost only 26 Euros while the trees I showed you above cost 40 Euros! It's the strangest thing, but we won't argue with the price!!
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Have a wonderful Christmas Eve! Pin It
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