our first real chirstmas

M and I have been married for 5 Christmas seasons now but this was the first time we ever had a "real" Christmas together, in our own home. The first Christmas we were married was spent at his parent's house because we had just finished our first assignment and were waiting for him to leave for Korea the next week. Our second Christmas was spent 6000 miles apart. W was just a few months old and I was living in an apartment and really didn't feel like buying a tree and decorating the house. I did however, make a lot of pie that year... Our 3rd Christmas together was actually spent together, but I was hugely pregnant w/ CB and had just moved across the world to Germany and really didn't feel like doing anything. I did put up a tree, with ornaments and all, but we didn't do anything else. We were so lame that 2 days before Christmas we decided that we should probably get W something, so we bought him a puzzle and some cars and called it good. It was only at 9 that night that I realized we didn't buy wrapping paper to wrap the presents, so W never did get to open anything on Christmas morning.

Then there was last year... which really, we can just not talk about because it was so incredibly embarrassing. Never before have I been such a scrooge. I know I had good reason but seriously, that tree was inexcusable. So this year I decided to make up for it all. Germans do Christmas right and this was my last chance to have a real German Christmas, so we went all out. Well, as out as we could. For the past 4 weekends I have been dragging my poor family through the rain and snow to almost every Christmas market in a 400 km radius from our house. We quickly found out they were all pretty much the same, but we still went, if for nothing else than to say we went.

The day after Thanksgiving I pulled out all of the Christmas decorations and went to town. And 20 minutes later, I was done. Didn't have that many Christmas decorations to put up... I had picked up a few from here and there over the years, but really, my collection was pitiful. That is what online Black Friday sales are for, right? Over the next 2 weeks boxes came and our house started to look like a bad Christmas catalog. Oh well, we were in the spirit and that is all that mattered.

Christmas Day itself was incredibly uneventful. The kids woke up way too early and we put them back to bed, then we finally gave into their demands for food and took them downstairs, had some breakfast and started in on the stockings. CB was like, "What the heck is the big deal?" Probably because half the stuff in her stocking was left over from our trip back to Germany... bad mommy! W was excited as always and couldn't wait to get to the big presents.

After we were done opening all of the presents and taking all of the required pictures, M got to experience his first marathon "quick, put everything together and find batteries to make everything work before the kids revolt" session. And then I spent the rest of the morning discreetly putting tape over any and all speakers on the new toys to make them quieter. Why toy manufactures only put loud, louder and loudest as the volume settings is beyond me, but you can bet there will be some letter writing going on because there is NO reason that a child's toy needs to be that loud!

Christmas dinner was tradtional and might as well have been Thanksgiving dinner: turkey breast, green bean casserole with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce... delish. It actually wasn't bad, considering the entire week before I had the flu and had lost 4 pounds and didn't exactly feel like cooking or eating.

And that was our Christmas. Nothing exciting, but we actually did it this year. I hope it will be the start of many special Christmas days to come, but I'm not holding my breath. It looks like next Christmas will be spent moving, which means we will end up at Denny's for breakfast after opening presents under a 2 foot Charlie Brown tree in our temporary housing because all of our stuff will be in boxes, most likely 2 weeks behind us. It's gonna be great!

Here are some pictures of our house for your enjoyment and my memory books: