Moline

Christmas 2008 - at last

Christmas 2008
Originally uploaded by moline

It came again suddenly and it all went differently than planned.
Every year I am a bit surprised at how suddenly Christmas approaches. When I am still sitting and planning decorations it is time to set the table for the 24th...
This year everything went somehow wrong. At 4h15 in the morning Moritz woke up with fever over 40 degrees. he finally was feelng sick and of course we had to change the poor little boy's pyjama and our whole bed. The fever went down over the day but he started hallucinating, talking baout weird stuff. In the end he was just lying in his bed, staring at us, not reacting at all. We were in shock and called the emergency doctor. She diagnosed fever, a virus and a severe nose infection.
So we skipped the holy night and all the present opening until the next day when he was feeling better. And we practised gratitude instead. it is so awful to see a wee loved one suffer and you cannot help.

Now everybody is well, the presents are unpacked and we found a bit peace to enjoy our time together.

I missed Flickr blogging and I hope you are all well and happy!

Thank you Martha and Gele

Baking
Originally uploaded by moline

How I love to flip through all the old Martha Stewart Living magazines to get inspiration for the Holidays (and not only Holidays)! So this year we made some biscuits in pastel colours to make them look snowy and wintery. I just like to look at them and I am not so eager to really eat them. But we will give away a lot and leave some for decoration of the tree. I am happy our friend Gele helped us making them. She is such a passionate baker and biscuit maker. I would never have done it to this degree without her help. And we are already planning for Easter...

Preparing for Christmas

Sugar shock
Originally uploaded by moline

Just in case you thought we were idling around here doing nothing....
Our friend and the children were busy making biscuits and gingerbread houses. I can tell you: 4 kg of sugar. I definitely won't eat them with my teeth just fixed! But we had so much fun making them and the children made their favourite animals for friends. Moritz made little white polar bears to give away, Jakob little pink piglets and Pauline colourful horses for her best friend. We will also keep some for decoration because so much work and love went into them. We hope you are having also fun preparing your Christmas!

Natural decoration

Natural decoration
Originally uploaded by moline

This year we decided on a natural decoration for the main table. The reason is that we got the Christmas caroling set from markus parents. It usually belonged to the great-grandmother. Whilst living in istanbul we gave this set to Markus grandmothers and they cherished it a lot. When they passed away Markus' mother took the two little boxes and kept one for herself and gave one to us so the memory of that gift and the grandmothers are still honoured. it is nice to tell the children that we not just bought it but it was handed to us as a part of a tradition we started years ago. maybe they will hand it down to their children some day...

Start of the Holiday season

So yesterday was the official start of the Holiday season for us. We had friends over on Saturday and celebrated a late Thanksgiving (sort of) and therefore the decoration was still in all these orange-brown fall colours. But the next morning there was a slight hangover and the will to refresh the house. So I started at the entrance to greet people. Again it was this Martha person that inspired me and I just altered it a bit. We here in Germany don't have this card sending tradition before Christmas so there was no point I could rely on Christmas mail coming in.  And hey Martha, who believes you that people were only sending blue cards for YOUR tree.... So a bit of cheating here and I just took the cards I liked and a few tags I ordered at Etsy last year and some other fun stuff to make me happy. 

And yes, this is also the chest of drawers I promised to clean and declutter. What a change it makes to replace the piles of mail and newspapers with some small blue elements - voila. AND I've been wanting to hang this print for such a long time. Now it cheers me up whenever I am entering and leaving the house.

The children were also very creative. Moritz contemplated on how unfair it was that only humans get Christmas calenders and not the animal of the house. So he planned to make one for George. 

We bought some of his favourite treats and also some tooth cleaning chewies and vitamins. Then they stamped some plain white stickers with some christmas motives and Moritz added the numbers from 1-24 (yes, 24 over here). 

They glued the stickers to simple paper bags and added a turquoise ribbon after putting the treats into the bags. George was getting a bit mad and was sniffing around all the time with so many good smells in the air...

And that was the result. I would like to get one like this as a dog and as a woman, too perhaps, (filled with dark chocolate covered marzipan...) 

Just in case you were asking yourself if I got a Christmas calender: Yes, two! One from the insurance company and one from a hotel- nice but not quite the same (although filled with chocolate).