"It Feels Like Christmas!"

Mine and Ray's favorite Christmas Tradition is to watch as many versions of A Christmas Carol as we possibly can throughout the season. My favorite is the musical, 1970's "Scrooge" with Albert Finney, while Ray loves "Muppet Christmas Carol." This year I read the book and we watched the Patrick Stewart version, which we also really enjoyed. The song that has been stuck in my head the most though is the Muppet's "It Feels Like Christmas" because, really, it does.

Minus the snow. Germany has had several icy mornings, but no snow! Hallelujiah! It's a Christmas miracle! :) I couldn't be happier about this fact. Though everyone and their dog seems to disagree with me.

Here are some pictures and updates of our Christmas season to demonstrate why this song has been stuck in my head nonstop.

Our real Christmas Tree! We drove out to a little town where a man and his family farm the trees all year, then sell them off the side of their house, and picked out our first real tree. I must say, I think it's a bit of an improvement from last years tree. We made all of our ornaments from applesauce and cinnamon, and then threaded our popcorn garland while watching yet another Christmas Carol. The whole tree smells amazing!

Yesterday we went to the Saarbrücken Christmas Market. We only managed to hit three markets this year (Kaiserslautern, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and Saarbrücken) but of those three, the last was our favorite. It felt truly German as opposed to touristy like Rothenburg, and was big enough to spend 3+ hours there as opposed to Kaiserslautern which took 30 minutes. Saarbrücken also has fabulous stores for bargain shopping like TK*Maxx (the German TJ*Maxx) and Primark, which is arguably our new favorite store out here. We took advantage of the deals and bought some last minute Christmas presents.

We also ate some of the yummiest Christmas treats at the market that we have ever had...

Reibekuchen! A delicious mix of hash browns in batter that is then deep fried and served with applesauce. Oh my heavens, so so good! And a toasty treat to warm up our chilly fingers.

This one may be my next baking experiment. I have to learn how to make Dampfnudel. It's like a steamed bun of goodness, and then this one was covered in vanilla cream sauce and cherries. This one also had cherry jam on the inside. Ray and I devoured the whole thing in the blink of an eye.

We got some kinderpunsch also, but the picture turned out crazy blurry. Sad day, because the collectible mugs from this market are cute little boots with "2013" painted across the toes. We now have six fabulous Christmas market mugs to use each Christmas. :)

Saarbrücken market had some fun, new exhibits. Like the 12 meter tall Christmas Pyramid:

And the finale: Santa's sleigh with reindeer, and the fog below, flying across the night sky:

Santa and the lady personifying the fog had to climb up this tower and into their vehicles to prepare for their night flight.

While the narration of the story of Rudolph booms over speakers, the sleigh glides over the entire market. It stops in the middle during the climax of the story. Then Rudolph's nose lights up bright, fireworks shoot from the back of the sleigh, and they zoom across the remainder of their course. It was fun to stand in the center of the marktplatz with hundreds of adults and children all staring up as Santa and "The Fog" waved to us below.

Only 3 more sleeps until Christmas! And then it's on to London for New Years!

p.s. I really did have every intention of sending out Christmas cards this year, but I failed miserably. We never got around to taking nice "card worthy" Christmas-y photos, so once again. This compilation posted onto our blog will have to suffice. Merry Christmas!