Musings of Amy

Last year Chris got a little movie called “The Elf on a Shelf” for the kids for Christmas.  They all loved it and watched it over and over again.  I even heard a couple of them wondering if we would ever get an elf to come visit us.  Santa must have heard them too because look who showed up in our house one morning?

The kids decided to name her Snowflake and they looked forward to seeing all the different places she would appear every morning.  They found her near their beds, in the Barbie house, playing with Lego, and playing cards with the Playmobil people.  She even ate a piece of Sophie’s candy once!

It was a lot of fun hanging out with her and we hope she comes back next year to report back to Santa on how well behaved the children are.

Our neighbor did one of the Advent windows again this year, and we quickly went down Friday night to support her and admire her handiwork.  We couldn’t stay long because it was the night Chris and I were going out to celebrate our anniversary, but we didn’t want to skip it entirely.  Someday I really would like to do one with all the neighbors, but now is not the point in my life where that would be feasible.

While everyone gathered around, the complete window was covered up with this cloth.  One of our other neighbors and his band partner played Christmas songs to keep us entertained.  Lots of people were singing along and having a great time.  It is a very fun tradition and I am glad there are enough people willing to do it every year in our little village.

Finally it was time for the unveiling. Each image symbolizes a different culture and their way of representing light, or something like that.  She explained it all very nicely, but it has been a while and I don’t have the greatest memory anymore.  We left and the kids stayed for cookies and hot chocolate before going back upstairs where Nicholas made sure they all got to bed.  It is so nice having a built in babysitter like that.

The last week of school before Christmas vacation was thankfully a bit slower.  No activities or parties to attend.  So we had time to concentrate on family things, like the kids making gifts for each other with my help, and baking treats for friends and neighbors.  I just wish the kids had more time off before Christmas rather than after to do all these preparation things.

By this time, most of the candy was gone from the gingerbread houses, so they started in on the door and roof. It helps keep them out of the candy I am making for other people as well.We bought this Playmobil Christmas Market scene a couple years ago, and we all look forward to setting it up every year.  It isn’t a fancy ceramic village, but we sure love it!

This year I made my usual candy treats for friends from church and the teachers up at the school, and something different for the neighbors in our apartment building and across the street.In years past, I have made individual packages for the kids’ teachers, but this year I just made one giant tray and brought it into the teachers’ lounge.  Almost every teacher in the school interacts with my children in one form or another, and this seemed a good way to include everyone and not make myself go crazy. 🙂  It was very well received, but I felt bad accepting their thanks.  I mean, I made the treats to thank them for being such awesome teachers.  But at least they didn’t think it tasted bad. haha

I used to try out different recipes each year, or trade off.  But over time, certain recipes have become “The Christmas treats” and so I end up making the same thing every year.  I am allowed to add new things if I want, but definitely NOT take any away.  Secretly I love that they look forward to it and am happy to oblige.  From top left to bottom right we have almond rocca, divinity with walnuts, Mounds bars, lemon drop cookies, buckeyes, buttercream mints, and peanut brittle.  I told Chris that I am so grateful he never says boo about me spending the money on the ingredients or even complains about the chaos that is everywhere for the 2-3 days I am making everything.  It is one of my favorite parts of Christmas and I am so glad the family just lets me do my thing. 🙂

For the neighbors I made an extra batch of almond rocca and then these really cute cookie trees.I bought star cookie cutters in descending sizes and used them to cut out gingerbread, lemon and spitzbuben cookies.  (Those last ones are swiss sugar cookies that you stick together with a layer of red currant jelly.) After I had my cookie forest all finished, I discovered a bunch more spitzbuben cookies I had baked and forgotten to include in the trees.  The children were more than willing to help me dispose of them. whew! 🙂  We have such caring, loving, patient neighbors and I just want them to know how much we appreciate them all.  Not everyone is so lucky, I know.

Our anniversary fell on Sunday this year, so the Friday before we went out to dinner and a movie to celebrate.  This was a pretty big deal, as Chris hasn’t dared to eat in a restaurant for a long time, due to his food allergies.  But he decided to give a simple pizza a try, since he eats frozen ones all the time with no problems.  He chose an Italian restaurant close to our favorite movie theater in Zug and we enjoyed a delicious dinner just the two of us.

We were worried the restaurant wasn’t any good when we arrived, as there was pretty much no one else in there.  But just as we were finishing up, huge crowds started arriving.  Apparently we are just early diners. 🙂 

We saw Skyfall and really enjoyed it.  Chris is so lucky he has a wife who loves action movies as much as he does.  And I am so glad he will happily sit through a sappy romantic comedy with me. Here’s to another 17 years!

(photo taken on actual anniversary)

As in years past,  the kids took a ride on the Märlitram with friends this year.  It was on Tuesday, squeezed in between the movie and the Christmas market at Kindergarten.  I absolutely love all the special activities during the holiday season, but man, it sure does keep us all busy!

We had a bit of trouble finding a parking spot, as the place I used to always park was blocked off since the last time I drove downtown.  Rude! 🙂 We ended up having to run a bit so as not to miss the tram. But we made it with a couple minutes to spare, and that turned out to be a good thing.  Less time having to stand around in the cold. haha  Sarah sadly is now too old to ride the tram, and this year was Sophie’s final ride.

He’s a bit blurry, but I love the people’s reactions around him.  My funny silly Noah.

Alexandra was glad to ride with Sophie, as Samichlaus can sometimes be a bit scary when you’re so small.  It’s always so fun to see the little kids filled with excitement and completely enchanted by the whole thing. Noah and his friend Max peeking out the window before the tram takes off.  Cool big boys can still be impressed by white lights and fairy glitter, thank goodness. When storytime is over, the tram stops and the Christengel disembark first.  They give each child a cookie and a swipe of angel dust, if they want it.

Apparently, the way it’s supposed to work is if you close your eyes that means you want the dust, if you leave them open you don’t.  Noah left his eyes open, but he still got the angel dust. 🙂  But the cookies that Samichlaus made were delicious, so he was still all smiles.

On the walk back to the car we saw this building all decorated for Christmas. So beautiful and required a lot of planning. I have always wanted to do something similar in our apartment building but am not sure how to execute it.  So I will just appreciate the efforts of whoever organized this masterpiece.

There is a woman in our town who has started a small school in Nepal called the Sunshine School.  The children who attend this school are the poorest of the poor.  She was made aware of the need for a school for them while on vacation there, and has made it her life mission to help these children.  When she isn’t in Nepal working with the children directly, she is traveling around trying to raise donations to keep it going.  Since she is local, her cause is well known to many people, and every couple of years someone in town does something to raise money for her.  This year it was the two Kindergarten classes.

Alexandra and her friends spent a couple of months making crafts to sell at a Christmas bazaar.  The cost of the materials was partially funded by the school, partly by the teachers themselves.  They were all useful items that could be eventually used up, making less clutter for the long term.  We LOVE that kind of thing. 🙂  On Wednesday, December 12th, we all headed over to the school for the bazaar.

The teachers had sent out notices not just to the parents of the children in the kindergarten, but also to all the parents in the school, as well as people in the community.  We were instructed to bring lots of small coins, as the children would be unable to give change.  (They’re only 5 and 6, after all.)  There was also a food table where donated items were being sold to raise even more money.  I brought some lemon filled cookies, a new to me recipe, and they were very popular. I guess they looked pretty fancy because they were sold for 2 Franks a piece!

After an adorable concert full of fun Christmas songs, the children were sent to their specific stations and the selling began.  It was first-come first-served, and the items all went really fast.  There were a few things that Alexandra had made that I wanted to buy, but they were already gone by the time she could point out to me which ones they were.  Still, we did get a couple of her beautifully decorated matchboxes, and we also bought some mini-notebooks, Christmas cards made by Alexandra and a few other things that the kids picked out.  Of course everyone got to choose something from the food table as well.

The next day I went to pick up my now empty cookie tray and I ran into Noah’s former Kindergarten teacher.  We started chatting about the evening and she told me they were able to raise over 1,200 Franks for the school.  They were thrilled.  Amazing what a determined group of small children can accomplish.  Good job, Alexandra!

Chris’ friend, Christian, made another movie, this one about the circumstances surrounding the carol “Silent Night” being written.  It was a made-for-tv movie commissioned by BYU-TV, and he had a special screening of it here in Zurich for those of us who wanted to see it.  It was on a school night,  but we thought it would be a special outing and made an exception.

Our kids were some of the only ones there, probably due to the starting time of 7:30! But they were very well behaved and loved the show.  They were especially excited because it was the same theater in which we saw one of his other movies, “Joseph Smith and the Golden Plates”.  This time we sat up in the balcony, which was a new experience that they loved.  They could see the screen easily, with no big heads in the way, and we were right by the exit in case someone needed a bathroom break. 🙂

After the movie and question and answer session following was over, we were able to buy our very own DVD, signed by the director. 😉 We also picked up another one of his movies, “The Letter Writer” and they are both Sunday afternoon favorites of the kids.  They quote the “Silent Night” movie all.the.time.  It does bug them that the actors speak English with such strong German accents. “Why can’t they just speak German?” they often lament.  But since the movie was paid for by Americans and made for Americans, it needed to be in English.

They all were very sleepy in the car on the way home, and the next morning when it was time to get up for school, but it was definitely worth it.  What a great way to celebrate the season!

It used to be that we would spend the evening of December 6 walking through the forest near the kids’ school.  After a few minutes spent singing Christmas carols round a fire, out would come Samichlaus with his buddy, Schmutzli and his donkey.  He would pull out a bag with the child’s name on it, that child would go up, say his/her poem or song and then would receive the bag of goodies.  But a few years ago, the parent group in our town decided to stop having Samichlaus come on his actual day.  Now they just do it on whatever Sunday comes nearest to the day.  Um, no.

So we stay home and Samichlaus still manages to find us and bring the children bags full of goodies.    Lots of peanuts, mandarin oranges, chocolate and Grittibaenz!  Although, that was already eaten by the time I took this photo. 🙂

Our sweet neighbor, Maya B. also leaves treats in front of the door for all of us, which the kids love. We still have all the little fabric Samichlaus’ from last year, and this year she sewed pretty little bags for each of us that were stuffed with more peanuts and chocolates.  So fun.

The next day Papa came home from work with a chocolate army. Everyone got a chocolate Santa left on their desk in honor of the special day, and several people gave theirs to Chris.  You know, the guy with all the kids. 🙂  Their numbers slowly dwindled over the next couple of weeks, until finally the last remnants were turned into chocolate fondue on New Years’ Eve.  Yum! Yum!

Maybe next year we will venture out into the forest again, it would be good for Alexandra to experience it at least once….

We made our gingerbread houses the first week of December this year.  I knew it was going to get a bit crazy later on in the month and didn’t want to risk running out of time to do them all together.  Plus, it helps to get us all in the Christmas spirit.  Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a sugar high! 🙂

We picked up lots of candy when we went big grocery shopping in Germany, and I just kept on filling the bowls while the kids worked.  We made them Monday night for Family Home Evening, but that is the night Nick doesn’t get home from school until 6:45.  So he ate dinner while the rest of the kids worked, and then quickly made a house for himself afterwards.There was plenty of candy left for him, especially his favorites.  I may have held back a few just in case…Half the fun of making the houses is eating the building supplies as you go.And there was plenty of time for that because I neglected to put the “cement” into two separate bags, so instead of the older kids being able to make their houses unassisted, I had to run back and forth putting icing on different spots for different kids.

But we all had a good time and the houses were all completed to the architects specifications. 🙂 

Yes, someone wanted to be sure and have PLENTY of candy to snack on for the month. Silly, silly girl. 🙂  My kids are funny and even eat some of the actual house, although the gingerbread has gotten rather stale by then.  They absolutely love the stuff.  I did make sure to bake up some gingerbread men a bit later on for them to snack on, and they were very happy.  I guess I could make it during the rest of the year, but somehow that would seem to take the specialness of it away, so for now it is staying a Christmastime treat.  Traditions are important, after all. haha

We almost had to cancel Thanksgiving this year.  Or do it on a different day, which is kind of the same thing to me.  Nick goes to school on Thursdays until 6 in the evening and there are no joker days in Kantonschule.  Nobody would feel like eating a big heavy meal that late at night, and celebrating without the entire family there is completely out of the question.  What to do, what to do.  Maybe we would have to have it on Saturday?

But then everything just fell into place.  Always seems to work out that way for me, don’t know why.  One of his teachers wasn’t going to be able to teach that day, so he would either get home earlier in the afternoon, or have a super long lunch.  We decided to go ahead and have it on Thursday and as the day got closer, we would know if we were eating at lunchtime or in the afternoon.  The other kids were super excited about staying home from school and not having to be sick to do it! 🙂

It ended up that Nick had a four hour lunch, so we had a very early Thanksgiving.  Which actually turned out pretty nice, since leftovers for dinner meant that we had two Thanksgivings in one day.  He came home at ten and was able to be there for much of the preparation, and to watch football.  Not that he cares about football, but has become part of our tradition.

The younger ones made the pull-aparts, or monkey bread, that Chris’ grandma always made. We did it in two shifts, so there was no chance of fighting.  Each person got a turn to make the balls of dough, and to be the one to roll them in the cinnamon sugar and plop them in the pan.  I love having them work with me in the kitchen.  Makes it feel more like a true family holiday.

I was very organized this year, even more so than in years’ past.  I made the cranberry ice on Tuesday, the pies on Wednesday, as well as getting the turkey in the brine.  The only problem with the desserts being done first, is they have that much longer to tempt hungry souls.

We have always invited the missionaries in the past, but since we have two German Elders serving in the ward, I figured they wouldn’t care about it and skipped it this year.  Then I found out the Sunday afterwards that even though he has a German name, one of the Elders is actually American. Doh!  I felt horrible. 🙁 Never going to make that assumption again.

There is one food item that always has to be present at every holiday, Grandma’s rolls!  That is what the kids call them, since they are my mom’s recipe.I was so worried about things not being done in time to eat lunch at 12:30, that stuff ended up being done ahead of time. The rolls had a really long time to rise and got nice and puffy.  The kids loved it!:)

It was nice to not be too stressed.  I need to remember what I did this time so I can repeat it in future years! I was just the happy chef cooking away, rather than crazy Mom on a holiday rampage. haha

Even though we were eating early, the kids still had a hard time waiting for everything to be done.  They kept checking to see how much more food had appeared on the table. And yes, there was a bit of scavenging. Although it wasn’t actually real food.  They are scraping the ice off the outside of the cranberry ice as it thaws enough for us to eat it. 🙂

We added a couple new things to the menu this year; deviled eggs and the raspberry jello pretzel salad I made last year.  Enough of us really liked it, that it made it on to the permanent menu.  The sweet potato casserole?   Yeah, we scratched that.  Tastes too much like pumpkin pie to be worth the effort.

Sarah is slowly wasting away waiting for everything to be ready. Also, I think she is enjoying being able to relax on what should be a normal school day.  Don’t worry, she was able to eat before any lasting damage occurred.

Sitting around the table filled with so much bounty, and surrounded by my most favorite people in all the world, I truly do feel blessed and thankful.  Happy Thanksgiving indeed!