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!