Merry Christmas!

It's really feeling like Christmas around here now. As Anouk declared yesterday in her matter-of-fact way: "We have Christmas." I think she was referring to the tree, which Mark and I put up yesterday while the kids were at daycare. Anouk is really excited - and that means a bit fussy at the moment. But, what would the days before Christmas be without kids being fussy because of the anticipation, Mama being fussy because she doesn't know whether or not she can meet the expectations and Dad caught in the middle...

All is good, all is calm. Presents are wrapped, the goose is the fridge for Christmas Day, the cupboards are bursting with Stollen, cookies and chocolate. Until Anouk announced this morning that Christkind was bringing her a new cuddly: a zebra. Zebra??? Two days before Christmas? Really?
I got lucky - it was the last one in the toy store. The teenagers working in the store were laughing about the people doing their last minute shopping (did they know that customers were in the store??) and it made me smile, because they obviously do not have children at home who decide last minute what  Christkind (or Santa) will surely bring this year.

Amazingly I even finished the quilt for Liam. It's been a long time coming and I did not want to give him a box of quilt blocks with the reassurance that some day I would finish it. Although Liam would have been happy with that, too.
Here is the quilt still in the making:

I wrapped it and put it away without taking another picture. The next picture will be of Liam snuggled into the quilt.

And so we are all ready for the days of celebration to come. We decorated our tree with our collection of ornaments coming from my and Mark's childhoods, ornaments from Denmark, Germany and some new ones from the Vancouver Christmas market.

And of course it wouldn't be Christmas without the Krippe that has been passed along to us from my parents. It's the Krippe of my mom's childhood, made by my great-grandfather for a young family with small children (my grandparents and my mom). It is always a very special moment when I take the old Sauerland barn out of the box and the delicate figures out of their boxes. The figures are old paper mache figures, probably from the 1920s.

Many generations come together in our Christmas room to celebrate with us. That's what Christmas is about this year. Family. Far and near. Family members that have passed away and left their memories with us and family members on their way to join us (Angela, we're thinking of your growing belly!).

Merry Christmas to all!

It's beginning to look and feel a lot like Christmas...

I was actually a bit shocked when I saw today that the last entry was in September... September!!

The fall went by in a blur. Liam is doing great at school, Anouk is doing great at her daycare. I've been super-busy finishing the book and Mark has been busy writing as well. Bookwriting was an all-consuming endeavor throughout the fall, with continuous re-writing, editing, revising and re-revising. And then all of the sudden the December deadline came and it was done. It took me the least two weeks to catch up on everything and catch my breath.

... and then all of a sudden Christmas is around the corner. And it's beginning to feel like Christmas here. Little by little the decorations have begun to crawl out of the Christmas boxes and the house looks more and more festive and cozy. Anouk's assessment: "I like the decorations, beautiful." And Liam is very excited about Christmas.

Here's Liam knitting a hat for Anouk's doll for Christmas:

Liam took his knitting to school for "show and tell" and I was a bit worried that he would get teased, but it went really well and the kids were interested when Liam showed them how it worked. A few weeks later he brought the finished hat to "show and tell". I asked him what other kids bring for "show and tell" and he replied "Things that we don't have, like computers". For the record, we have more computers than we need, but I guess none that I would let Liam bring for "show and tell"...

And here is the doll I made for Anouk that will wear the hat:

Doing some crafting during the bookwriting was really good for me. It was good to just relax, let my hands do the work and let my mind rest. Up to the last few weeks when I just collapsed onto the couch in the evening and then dragged myself to bed - no more creative energy left, actually no energy left at all...

I even started a quilt for Liam for Christmas and joked about how this is a perfect procrastination excuse: instead of writing another 3 study questions, finish another 3 blocks for the quilt... Then a friend confirmed that I was not alone with that method: there is actually a book about quilting instead of writing on your book... I have to ask her about the title...

Now that I can do some sewing without guilt I made some Danish Christmas flags for our window:

And I even tried to make some chocolate treats. There are lots of recipes for this online and it all boils down to a simple: melt your chocolate and pour it out onto some parchment paper, put some toasted almonds (or other nuts, or candies, or whatever) on top, melt some more chocolate and drizzle on top. Done. Easy. And super-good!!!

Encouraged by the almond bark, I decided that making caramels wouldn't be too tough either. And honestly, what can go wrong when you mix together sirup, sugar and heavy cream and bring it all to a boil? Well, it's guaranteed to taste really good, especially when you then stir in copious amounts of butter... But, if the recipe says to boil for 45 minutes, you should probably boil for 45 minutes, not 25. 25 minutes gives you very gooey (but delicious!!) caramels. Too gooey in fact to really cut up and put on a plate or put into little jars as a gift... So, what's a novice caramel maker to do? How about melt some chocolate, freeze the caramel and then dip the frozen caramels into the chocolate - chocolate-covered caramels!! mmmh!!!

And then the treats do all fit into a little jar as a gift. This one is for Liam's teacher.

And here's our kitchen window looking more and more Christmassy, especially with the snowflakes and the star that Liam made and the little gingerbread ornaments that arrived just in time for Nikolaus from Germany.

And since I haven't written a thing here for months I thought I should share some recent pictures of Liam and Anouk.

This is what the kids looked like this weekend as they dressed up: