This was by far the most hectic, unorganized Christmas I’ve had in a long while. Let me state now that one of my resolutions for 2010 is to have things together long before Christmas eve in 2010 so I’m not ready to pull my hair out when I should be enjoying this joyous holiday. We’ve actually started a Google Wave for ourselves so we can put together what we have, what we still need and where it’s all going to go next year. Yes, we are nerds but planning is necessary for success on big projects like these.

Those who have little kids at home know that it’s not any easier to get things done. One person always needs to keep an eye on the tike who is trying to explore everything and bound to find some trouble sooner or later. Mackenzie is really great about playing by herself and keeps herself well entertained. But putting up Christmas lights and decorations is not a 1.5 person job. It could easily be a 3 person job, really. Especially when you have as many eves and trees to decorate as we do.

The weather leading up to Christmas was not all the cooperative either. It was either raining or snowing and got crazy cold after Thanksgiving. Not all the pleasant to be running around in. The weather delayed our hunt for the perfect Christmas tree until the Sunday before Christmas. Not ideal in any way. The roads were covered with a couple inches of snow and nothing we drove on during the trip to the Hirbacherhöfe outside of Hammersbach had been plowed. It was snowing heavily the whole time and although beautiful and very Christmas-like, it was quite frigid. The heater in the Defender takes a good 15 minutes to get going so I was thankful to have my gloves while driving. I know, the truck is a piece of junk…but I love the darn thing. Even when the doors were frozen and had to be closed multiple times until they actually stay shut.

We managed to find a couple trees that weren’t too scraggly but they weren’t cheap either. I’m not sure we’ll be going back to this place again. I think we paid almost double this year over last. And the middle of the trees were nearly bare. I miss full, beautiful American trees. I hear they have double fir trees in Bavaria so we may have to ask around and see if we can order one from someone. We’ll have to ask one of the local florists that also sells tress…

Remember how we transport things around here? Yep, on the roof of the Defender. I heard it was slick as snot up there when Stefan was getting the trees up and down. Not to mention insanely cold. You can’t tell in this photo but it was snowing like crazy still. Very wet, huge flakes. He actually managed to get these big trees off by himself without killing anyone or getting run over. Quite impressive.

We finally got the tree up on Monday night and I literally decorated it just hours before Stefan’s parents arrived on the 23rd. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning I was all over the place, taking care of grocery shopping, cleaning, decorating and getting things tidied up. Did I mention my washer/dryer combo is also on the fritz too? Hopefully we’ll get a repairman out here quickly to fix it…without too much damage to our wallets. I think the pump is out. Woo. Of course the thing is 8 years old so I guess it’s been pretty good to us so far.

In addition to everything else, we were also putting together Mackenzie’s homemade present for this year which Stefan will hopefully start building a whole lot sooner next year. It’s a cool little slide that can be flipped over and used as a chair. Things didn’t go quite as smoothly as hoped but it’s going to be super cute when it’s finished up. And I think Mack is going to have a lot of fun playing with it for the next few years.

Needless to say with these insanely full days we were sleeping pretty soundly at night and happy to be in bed before 11 pm. It’s amazing what you can pack into a day when you really try…and when Stefan is home at 4 pm. Next year I think he’ll be taking more time off around the holidays, though. And we hope to have most of the decorating done over Thanksgiving weekend!

Thankfully, once the in-laws arrived I was mostly able to relax and just start enjoying the time together. We had a wonderful dinner on Wednesday night at Da Enzo in Hanau and all of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Mackenzie loved all the new experiences and tastes. I swear I have to learn to make panna cotta. I don’t think it’s hard but oh my gosh is that stuff good. Then again, maybe I don’t want to learn to make it…unless we’re having party and I don’t have to be responsible for eating it all. 🙂

Thursday we took it easy and began cooking for our feast: smoked Kansas City BBQ ribs with corn on the cob, fresh coleslaw and fries. It was SO good. Mackenzie easily ate two ribs, 1/4 of a full corn cob, a couple fries and a fist full of coleslaw. She is such a good eater.

We also opened presents on Thursday night because here in Germany, the Christkind (Christ’s child) brings the presents on Christmas eve and you get to open them then too. Mackenzie cleaned up, as usual. She got the most adorable little pull behind suitcase from her great grandmother. You have seriously never seen anything this cute. She loves opening and closing the zipper on it. Zippers are oh so cool right now. She also got a couple of those cool little toys where you shift stuff around on wires, from side to side of the toy. I have no idea what they’re called (maybe someone can help me out here) but she loves playing with them. They always seem to have big ones in doctor’s offices. This is no where near everything she got but we don’t want to make you jealous. 😉

I was apparently a very good girl because I got a KitchenAid Pro 450 Series 4-1/2-Quart Stand Mixer
for Christmas. It’s so pretty. I just want to hug it every time I walk into the kitchen. But I do wonder if my in-laws were just trying to encourage me to cook more often when they’re here. It’s not that I get complaints and they did recommend I write a cookbook so I think it’s one huge compliment! 😉

I also got a really cool necklace from Stefan which has a flip flop on it so cute I just never want to take it off. Mackenzie would probably like it if I wore it more often also. She loves playing with it. And what little girl doesn’t like sparkly, pretty things?

As if that wasn’t enough, I also got something that will help me out on a new career path. Those who know us will verify that we are entrepreneurs on many levels and always have lots of pots in the fire. We think that diversification is the easiest way to escape from the man…if you can make decent incomes with several small ventures instead of one huge one, that sounds good to us. It’s quite hard to get huge with so much competition out there. And you might just have to be so big that you need partners, etc which means you lose control. So one of my gifts was a new portable massage table. I tell you, that thing is more comfortable than our own bed. I may have to buy a couple more and make futons from them for our room. No really. 🙂

Overall we had a lovely Christmas even though I wish we could have had more family nearby. Most of my family has ended up in Texas and weren’t here with us…but the winter is so yucky here they were better off at home. Our Christmas was ALMOST white. The last real snow we had was the Sunday before Christmas and everything just kept melting from there…and it rained a bit to help make it nice and slick. Oh well, maybe next year. This was the closest we’ve been so far!

We’re looking closing out 2009 peacefully and without major chaos. We’ll be catching up with a friend who was just in Australia for three months on Wednesday and have decided to have a nice quiet New Year’s dinner at home with Mackenzie. Then we’ll put her to bed, cuddle Ayla when the fireworks start and sleep in late the next morning. Heaven! It will actually be our first New Year’s eve with just us since we’ve met…and we’ve been together 9 years! Not that the other New Year’s parties weren’t great. It’s just nice to have some relaxation time at home after so much craziness the rest of the year.

How was your Christmas? No meltdowns I hope!!