We spent the night of Christmas Eve putting together a special addition Star Wars puzzle. It was hard. It was all-consuming. The hours just ran away from us, and when I glanced up at the clock it was after 1 o'clock in the morning!!! I couldn't believe it, especially since we couldn't sleep in TOO late on Christmas, because we had church. We hurried and got the kids to bed, filled the stockings, and went to bed ourselves (thankfully, we didn't have any presents to wrap, because we didn't do present this year!).
We dragged everyone out of bed at 8:30 and lined up the kids on their couch for their obligatory picture with their stockings.
I bought new stockings that I found at the Idstein market this year, because I did NOT like the stockings I made last year. I also made this cute stocking holder, since we don't have anywhere to hang them.
Our church service was actually combined with the German ward, with whom we share our building. Everything was translated in both English and German, so it took twice as long for the speakers. But I really loved having that large of a congregation sing the Christmas hymns together, and I even sang the last one, Silent Night, in German :)
After church we had a pretty lazy day, but I did manage to make a last minute Christmas card.
The day after Christmas I remembered that we hadn't made our ornament for the year, so we put together a few of these.
I'm not sure I like them with the rest of my ornaments, but Cora thinks they look fine.
Everybody said that Christmas felt very anticlimactic this year, even though they enjoyed the day. We did host a cookie decorating party at our house. And we did go to several markets. And we did watch a ton of Christmas movies. But we didn't do our advent calendar this year, and I think that was part of the problem. Having a count down like that, and doing something every day during the holidays is really something my kids and I look forward to. But I totally dropped the ball this year. It's a good thing I've never tried elf-on-the-shelf ;)
Next year we'll most likely be visiting Utah for Christmas. It will be totally different. Surrounded by family. No German Christmas markets. Weird, but good.
We planned a weekend to go to the Freiberg Temple. It happened to be the weekend when there was a huge accident on the A4, which led to the closure of that freeway, which led to us getting stuck in stau (traffic jam) for 7 kilometers that took us 4 hours, and then an umleitung (detour) without any direction signs.
We had arranged to stay at the temple housing, and we were supposed to get there at 8:00pm, but we ended up getting there at 1:15 in the morning. So what should have taken us 4 1/2 hours, ended up taking us 9 hrs. and 15 minutes. It was quite the drive, and we literally collapsed into our beds when we finally arrived.
Miraculously, the gate to the temple parking lot just happened to be broken, so we were able to get onto the grounds, and they left us a key to our room in a lock box and gave us the code to open it. Miraculously, the beds were extremely comfortable, and I was able to sleep soundly. We slept in, instead of going to the earlier sessions, and even though I felt like death warmed over when the alarm went off, I was grateful for the opportunity to be there at all.
As I sat in the temple, I looked at the older men and women there, and I couldn't help imagine that some of them had been there when the temple was first built in 1985. It was still a divided Germany, and Freiberg was in East Germany. The events that led to a temple being built in a communist country were truly miraculous, and the members of the church there, who had suffered so much, truly deserved that blessing. I was humbled to realize that my own trip to the temple, which had seemed so hard the night before, was really nothing in comparison to the sacrifices others have made to get to temples around the world. Essentially, I cried the whole time I was there ;) But I left feeling very much rejuvenated, both mentally and spiritually.
After that we drove to Dresden to see a little bit of the city, and visit the Christmas market there. There are actually MANY Christmas markets in Dresden, scattered throughout the city, with the Striezelmarkt dating back to the 15th century - officially the oldest Christmas market in Germany.
We only drove past that one though, because we wanted to go to the one at the Frauenkirche.
This church was spoken of by Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf in General Conference in April. It's a great talk, and you can find it here. It's a beautiful church, and it was a fun market.
Neumarkt and statue of Martin Luther
VERY crowded down Munzgasse
I always enjoy the street musicians.
I would have loved to spend another day there to see more of the city, but we had to get back. We loved what we did see.
Looking across the river to the Saxon State ministry buildings (I think).
I was trying to get to as many Christmas markets this year as I could because it's our last Christmas in Germany. It's easy to go to a lot, because almost every town/city has their own. Some last all month, some for just a week. Some people think if you've been to one Christmas market, that's good enough. They're all the same, right? Wrong! Each town has it's own unique feel, foods, vendors, decorations, street performers, and recipe for kinderpunsch. I enjoy them all.
I went with some friends to a market in Cochem.
We think they had a larger market the weekend before that went all the way up to the castle. But when we went, there were just a few stalls. There are a lot of cute shops in this town though, and it's really picturesque.
A lot of times at the Christmas markets they have decorations and items for sale that are fairy tale related (like the Brothers Grimm), but not necessarily Christmas related. At this market they had a lot of Hansel and Gretel things, and Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs (in Strasbourg there were a lot of storks and witches on everything).
We also went to the market it Mannheim. I liked this market, but I only got one photo.
I definitely want to get back and explore this city when it's warmer (it was SO cold that day).
But my favorite Christmas market this year has been the one at Schloss Drachenfell, in Konigswinter. It was a Dickens-themed market, complete with period costumes, and I absolutely loved it! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but I am SO glad we didn't miss out on this one.
.
