Christmas spirit!

It's blogland's fault that I've been going Christmas crazy all month (Gail!). She just mentioned cookies and I went nuts - I am currently doing Cookie-palooza, with several doughs waiting in the freezer for Christmas Eve at J's family celebration.

But first, his mom gifted me these "fairy lights" and since they're so named, I wonder if that means I can keep them up all year? They are perfect hanging from our ceiling beams!


They're not on timers like all our outdoor/window lights so every morning I plug them in and enjoy all day long. I realize I have no photos of our outdoor lights this year but it's the same as every year, so you already know how overboard I go (to the neighbors' dismay!). If you would like to see, let me know and I'll get a photo.



Cookie #1 - Spritz Gebaeck. I made exactly 7 cookies before my Spritz pistol blew up and died....we fixed it today so we'll see if I can whip up another batch, because these won J's top cookie award. They remind me of my grandmother's so much, even though I could not find colored sugar anywhere.



Cookie #2 - crinkles. I didn't really know they are just brownies rolled up into balls. Now I know. Also, I must make them much, much smaller cuz they are so intense no one can eat an entire one.



Not-cookie #3 - I made Aussie meat pies recently and with the leftover puff pastry I was suddenly inspired to make pocket pies. These are filled with raspberry/blackberry hybrids from our garden. J says they are also "too much" so next time I'll make them tiny. They taste almost exactly like Puyallup Fair scones! Oh my gosh, the taste of a happy childhood.

NOT SHOWN - my first attempt at Rice Crispy treats in Germany, with not-rice-at-all wheat puffs, that no matter how tiny I made them, were too marshmallowy for J. I plan on making them and marketing them to the multiple new young children in the family.

Also not shown, my Zimt Sterne. I made "gingerbread" stars - not sure I can use that word cuz there is no molasses in Germany. Similar, though, and J's second favorite. I've got to get my cookie cutting skills in order cuz I couldn't even take a photo they were so ugly. Help?



Another one from Gail's recommended site, these were extremely hard to make cuz Candy Canes are not a thing in Germany. I searched high and low and then J's intern came up with a bunch and gave the to him. These cookies are a minty overload - inside each cookie is an After 8 (Germany's peppermint patty). They smell like Girl Scout cookies. I sent an entire batch with J on the last day of school to give his intern as a thank you.



Also not pretty, but an amazing experience if you're a mint fan. Oh, you might ask why I'm baking cookies when I'm on the Atkins diet. I have discovered I mostly love baking for my husband (including the Aussie pies) and other people, and only allow myself a bite or two to see what the heck they taste like. I'm amazed anyone might eat an entire one of these, I've lost my taste for sugar. Tomorrow I'll size them down.



I'm not sure you can see that the glass in our woodstove is kaputt. That was February, and we finally got around to getting a replacement.



This was what I came home to after the two dudes on the left finished installing our new unit. It is 3 years old, used in the shop, so has a few defects (therefore affordable).  I wasn't sure at first but I like it because of the huge "TV screen" window. It was really hard to find a wood stove that isn't the modern, slim/tall type, which wouldn't work in our house cuz our ceilings are less than 2 meters.



I was in love.....



And then I fell out of love because we cannot use it without smoking up our home. *sigh* If you open the door to load another piece of wood, you smoke yourself out. You end up opening all the windows to your home just to have a fire that burns more than a couple hours. I've given up, I don't know what to do. It is so awesome, but you just cannot open the door....and that's kind of an important part of keeping a fire going. Ideas? Oh, the Chimney Sweep was already here to inspect, (by German law your wood stoves must be inspected every 6 months and your chimneys cleaned), and it is not compliant, yet. If I told you the steps we must take, you wouldn't believe me.



TODAY!!!!!!! WE GOT A TREE!!!!!!! A REAL TREE!!!!!!!!!!!!

We haven't had a tree at all the past few years but suddenly J said yes, this year we could. I think he sensed my homesickness and knew it would help me feel better.

The only trees we'd ever had here are the tiny ones that come in pots, that you plant in your garden after (and 2 of them are still growing, doing fine, which is scary cuz they'll be huge someday). For some reason I needed a "real" Christmas tree this year - big enough to almost touch our ceiling, and require a Christmas tree stand.

Wow that was hard, finding a store that sells them. First of all, I had to take the bus. Annoying. But not nearly as annoying as the song playing at the shop I felt sure would have a stand, but did not.

You know the song.

I cringed, "I'd love to just get by ONE YEAR without hearing how someone broke George Micheal's heart." 

In fact when I complained later to J, he pondered, "This is the real reason the time machine was invented! It was someone who'd had ENOUGH of that song, and traveled back in time to kill that lady George Micheal gave his heart, mistakenly, away to on Christmas.

I laughed so hard, and thankfully my husband did not run to the piano to play it! I would have thrown rice crispy treats at him.

I finally found a tree stand and a string of blue lights.

I re-enacted my step-father's quest for MORE BLUE and here we have it - a mostly blue tree. It is so pretty, the camera cannot capture it.



It's huge. It takes up so much space I'm not sure we can watch TV. Huge compared to what we'd had in the past. We don't have any nice ornaments but I'm kind of fond of the tiny bells and mini red balls and felt stars - no idea, they must have all come from J's mom over the years, I've never bought an ornament in my life.



Since the grocery stores will be closed 4 out of the next 5 days, we went "American style" shopping, filling up our fridge and cupboards and they had some old bread for sale for 50cents per loaf, and I grabbed them for Bellis and Mag. They're on the radiator so they'll turn into crispy snacks in 12 hours. All German horses eat bread.



Oh my, since I started typing it turned to nighttime and it's so amazing at night! Why don't we always have a tree!? THREE of those boxes under the tree are from America, holding the most-treasured basic things we miss about my home....we hope!

As I type this I'm listening to YouTube's London Symphony Orchestra Christmas Carols.

I know some people don't love Christmas and I think I understand. People die, or people are ungrateful making family gatherings stressful, and not sheer the bliss I grew up with. We had a lit-up life-size nativity in my grandparents' yard (they do not exist in Germany - or you know I'd have one!). We had trays of homemade cookies, animatronic Santas, a huge reindeer on the wall with a glowing red nose.

One of our favorite somewhat-recent memories of a Christmas with my sister's family in America, for J and me, was the year little Christian was overwhelmed with happiness to find a toothbrush under the tree. He ran around the house yelling, "A TOY STORY 3 TOOTHBRUSH! THANK YOU MOM! THANK YOU DAD!"

That's the spirit: )