New Year’s resolution number one: start blogging again. It’s amazing how awful we’ve been at this. Truly.

So many things have happened since we last blogged. We visited Munich, Nuremberg, and Amsterdam, experienced our first Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s in Germany, and had quite a bit of fun in the process. I will post pictures from our trips this week. Promise.

In the meantime, some commentary on the holidays.

Thanksgiving

Obviously, this is not a German holiday. I’m surprised they haven’t adopted it here, however, in the spirit of working less, closing grocery stores, and as an additional excuse for slacking in customer service. Fortunately, this is not the case because planning is not my forte. I was able to successfully purchase last-minute items on Thanksgiving DAY for my garlic mashed potatoes and bacon-grease infused green beans I took with me to our neighborhood Thanksgiving (with friends and a family of Jeff’s colleagues, of course).  Despite missing my family greatly, this was one of the tastier Turkey Days I’ve experienced in recent history — likely because everyone brought their culinary A-game to one or two dishes! And who knew that pilots and their spouses were such a culinary bunch.

Following Thanksgiving, we had a smaller, more intimate German-style Thanksgiving, at which our half-German couple friends (Emily and Nick) cooked goose, with a side of purple cabbage and apples and dumplings. Quite Deutsch! Oh, I must not forget the chestnuts they added to the gravy (I love them; Jeff doesn’t). Mmm. mmm. We hosted. They did most of the work. I’m generally OK with that arrangement.

Thanksgiving with goose!

Goose, cabbage, dumplings — oh my!

Christmas

The Christmas traditions of the U.S. are pretty much German traditions, so being here is pretty awesome. To summarize things quite simply — Germans love and wholeheartedly embrace this holiday, so it’s quite festive! The best part, Christmas markets and Glühwein. Christmas markets (or, Weinachtsmarktes) are essentially these mini craft fairs, where local craftsman set up shop and sell ornaments, art, food, knick-knacks, etc., all while people walk around sloshed on warm, mulled vino. It’s pretty amazing.

On Christmas Day, Jeff and I enjoyed being together — with the dogs — for the first time, ever, I think. We indulged in a feast with friends on both Christmas day and New Year’s.

The New Year’s tradition in Köln, and all of Germany (I think), is to light off as many fireworks and other explosives as possible (unfortunately for us, this terrifies our dog Kaya and leads to explosive something else). In fact, commercial-grade fireworks are even sold in grocery stores the week leading up to Jan. 1.

We witnessed children blowing off smaller fireworks in the street in front of moving cars, and we saw one local almost blow off a hand (and maybe a face) by closely inspecting what he thought was a dud (it wasn’t).  I think this article sums up the Germany holiday nicely: “New Year in Germany is full of suicidal charm.” 

(For whatever reason, WordPress is not letting me upload photos and then text, so here are a random selection of shots from what I just described.) Happy new year! Hopefully I will blog again before next year…

Market at the Kölner Dom.

The markets are exceptionally crowded. Especially on weekends. I might have some permanently Glühwein-stained clothing.

Enjoying the markets with friends

Enjoying their new Christmas dog toy.

Attempting to get dogs in the photo! FAIL.

Jeff modeling his new sweater and PJ pants on our little Christmas “picnic” blanket.

Kaya and tree.

Christmas table “scape” — minus the food. I was really impressed with the layout.

Holiday party at the Pullman.

New Year’s — the aftermath.

Happy 2013!