Christmas Eve (2014)

A few days before Christmas we went to Oma and Opa’s house for the traditional Raclette Christmas dinner. I didn’t take any photos of the food this year, but if you don’t know what Raclette is, you can check out last year’s post here.

IMG_9450

Quinnie got to light lots of the Christmas candles this year so she was psyched about that!

IMG_9439

IMG_9483

Maxim’s Dad gave him this guitar for Christmas

IMG_9454

Quinnie and Max playing Mau Mau (one of Quinnie’s favorite card games)

IMG_9464

Oh, how Quinnie enjoys tormenting her Cousin (I think he sometimes secretly likes it)!

IMG_9475

IMG_9481

IMG_8951

The next day we put together our annual gingerbread house. I had to order this one online- they are surprisingly hard to find here (at a reasonable price at least).

IMG_8988

TA-DA!!

IMG_9006

Christmas Eve day we made some cookies for Santa (and our neighbors). Homemade icing and everything. They were SO yummy!

IMG_9011

IMG_9010

top right- we bought a Kölner Dom cookie cutter at a Weihnachtsmarkt

IMG_9016

Watching the cookies bake- can you tell they were excited? Kiera’s favorite part? Licking the spoon!

IMG_9336

Grandpa made his traditional Christmas sausage bread. Growing up, we always had this for breakfast Christmas morning. SO delicious! Whenever my parents get invited to holiday parties the host usually asks my Dad to make this and bring it with them.

IMG_8141

Late afternoon we went to a kid’s Christmas service at the local Lutheran church (actually the church is under construction so they had the service at a nearby Weihnachtsmarkt bar).

Quinnie and Kiera sat right up front and were riveted!

Then we went home for a yummy dinner (made by Grandma) and prepared for Santa’s arrival…

IMG_9072

Notes for Santa

IMG_9055

IMG_9062

IMG_9059

IMG_9040

And of course we couldn’t forget the “magic key” that lets Santa in since we don’t have a chimney (it only works for Santa so it’s OK to hang it outside for him).

IMG_8638