Holiday Season is over

That was a good Holiday season this year! It was relaxing, fun and I got more gifts than ever. Can't remember the last time I opened presents for almost 2 hours.
On December 20th we had our company Christmas party. This time it took place at the "Zeche Zollverein" restaurant. It was great. Great food (red cabbage, Knoedel and geese: this is kind of a traditional German Christmas dinner) and a lot of fun. And it was cold and we had a tiny little bit of snow which makes everything look white and christmasy.
I took Friday off, went out for breakfast with my colleague Jens and did some last minute Christmas shopping. It is amazing how crowded downtown Essen can be.
Saturday some friends of mine and me spent the day at the Phantasialand, an amusement park similar to Disney Land, but not as big. It became kind of our tradition to go there the day or so before Christmas. They have everything decorated for winter which looked really neat.
Sunday I went to my brother's house to celebrate Nico's 11th birthday. It was also nice and fun, especially since my godfather has been there too and I always love meeting him. We had good food (cake in the afternoon and dinner at night), talked and played with the kids. Fun.
And then it was Christmas Eve. In Germany this is when all the kids get excited because it is the evening of opening all the presents. I flew in to England in the morning and we were home around noon. Usually we didn't have meat on Christmas Eve and so Dave and I just prepared a potato salad and bought some smoked salmon for dinner. In the afternoon we drove to Bury St. Edmund for a crib service at the abbey. It was fun. It was my first visit to an Anglican church and I enjoyed it. The whole service was for children. We sang some songs and listen to the first Christmas story. We also planned to visit another service at 11:30pm, but we both fell asleep prior to it. Therefore the crib service was the only one we visited. When we came home from it we had dinner, sang some Christmas songs, read the Christmas story from a German and an English bible and then.......opened presents!!!!!! It was so great. Dave's family from Minnesota sent dozens of little wrapped boxes with all kind of nice stuff like cards, ear rings, calender, books, binoculars for Dave, a sweatshirt for me and more and more. I also got a key board and now I try to learn how to play it ;o) And Dave got me a beautiful necklace to wear with the wedding dress next year (well, it is this year already).
Christmas day we were invited by Dave's colleague and her family. We had turkey dinner, watched a movie and played outburst.
In Germany we also celebrate the "2nd day of Christmas" or boxing day, but unfortunately Dave had to work. So I played a little bit with my new key board, walked Amber, watched DVDs and read. I did all the things I didn't have time for during the last year. It felt so good. And the best thing: I could do the same things again the next day.
The weekend before New Year's Eve Corinne visited us from Switzerland. I emailed and talked to her on a regular base during the year, but it was more than one year since we last met. So I was very excited and we had a great time. We visited Cambridge, went to the sea and celebrated New Year's Eve with another of Dave's colleagues. Too bad she didn't have more days, but we both hope she will come visiting again before we have to leave.

That were my holidays. I flew home on Wednesday morning and had to work during the last three days. Juergen and Ingrid stayed at my house in Germany until today and so we had dinner together and also had some more time for talking and laughing. All in all it was a very good start in a hopefully very good new year.

Talking about it: The wedding invitations for June are almost done and we will send them out this weekend. We already made reservation to hold hotel rooms for the family and friends from the US. We will also work on the March invitations, even if most of you already know the exact timing. I also got a call from the jewellery store letting me know the wedding rings are ready to be picked up. I think I will do it next week. First of all I will fly back to England today after work. Plans for the weekend are the invitations and also getting rid of the Christmas tree.

I wish you all a very happy New Year 2008!