Rudesheim Christmas Market

The weekend before Christmas we got all bundled up and headed out for one last Christmas Market before they all closed down.

This one was a only about 25 minutes away, nestled in this cute little town on the Rhine river.

They had an awesome nativity set up, the only one we had seen all year.

It was very cold and rainy so we decided to grab some lunch and head back to the car.

On the way out William spotted the train, so of course they had to take a ride.

This was my first real German meal, Bratwurst and Chips, and it was yummy! 

Every Christmas market has a mug you can buy, either with a drink usually beer or Kinder-punch (basically warm juicy juice), you can either turn it back in and get most of your money back or just keep it as a memento. We've kept all of ours, and it's been fun to watch the collection grow. Next year, we'll have so many we wont know what to do with them all!

Ronneberg Christmas Market

After hitting up the Heidelberg market Nick and I decided to drive up to Ronneberg, which is just 20 minutes past Frankfurt.

It was by the cutest little tradition town with the most gorgeous view.

It was a very cold day and towards the end it started raining but luckily we spent most of the time inside the castle.

It wasn't a castle like Heidelberg, this one was used for soldiers and not for royalty to live in.

To get up to the top of the tower you had to make five full rotations up the staircase then climb up two sets of these steep stairs. I have to say, going down carrying Kaelyn was one of the starriest things I have ever done, I was so worried I would slip and fall.

The Christmas market from the tower

 

This kids had a blast playing with of the old fashioned toys and tools, especially the swing which was a battle to get them away from.

A few from atop the castle

After we explored the castle it had gotten much colder so we started to make our way back out to glance through the booths outside then head on home. Nick found these really cool candle holders, and this is the one I picked out.

On our way our I spotted St. Nicholas so I grabbed William and we ran up to say hi. He got a piece of candy then I stepped back to get a picture and he thought I was leaving him. The guy was nice enough to stoop down to get into the picture but it has to be the saddest picture with St Nicholas every recorded.

In the square there were some musicians playing period instruments, I thought they were very talented.

Heidelberg Christmas Market

 A couple of weeks before Christmas this kids and I went with some people from the ward to a couple of Christmas markets in Heidelberg.

As we waited outside of the tram station for everyone else in our group we heard this big crash. William was standing by the wall with a chunk missing from it. We all laughed and said that it was already broken just waiting for an unsuspecting boy to come by so that it could fall. That was just the start of people pointing and laughing at William that day.

  One of the booths had a fire going and was smoking fish. William has been really obsessed with fire lately so he was so excited to go up and look. As the wind shifted the heavy smoke blew right at him and, naturally, he started coughing pretty dramatically. All of the Germans thought that was pretty funny.

There were lots of other kids there so William had a blast running around with them.

This was the first market we had ever been to, and we loved it. We found this Reindeer made from sticks that I just loved and William wanted to carry it so bad, mixing that with his love and chasing birds was a bad combination.

There are booths selling everything you can imagine, one bar was even set up like a tradition windmill covered in lights.

We all had so much fun, staying almost an hour longer than everyone else along with our friends that rode up with us.

We added the reindeer to our decorations in the hallway to protect our house.

Tree Lighting

They had a tree lighting on post along with games one things for the kids.

We bundled the kids up, and headed out for some good old family time.

William saw the games and of course just had to throw the bean bags!

The kids had fun, inside they had a bounce house that Kaelyn was too little for, and William was too nervous to go in, so they mainly ran around with the other kids or climbed on the stairs.

However this was their first year seeing Santa, and although William cares more about his candy cane, and Kaelyn has no idea what is going on, neither one cried so I call that a success!

Decorating for Christmas

My favorite thing about Thanksgiving is that it means I can finally decorate for Christmas!

William has always loved helping me decorate, and this year he was big enough to help with most things.

He helped do the bottom half of the tree and it looked beautiful.

Kaelyn just enjoyed eating them.

It's always interesting decorating in a new house. Figuring out where to put things, where they will look the best and this was the biggest challenge we have ever had.

This year the only place we had to put lights was on our balcony so they are on the verge of tacky and gaudy, but what can I say, I like my lights.

Since our space to decorate is limited inside, I have taken it upon myself do decorate our stairwell as well. I don't usually make it any farther than just the next floor down, but it gets cheerier and cheerier as you make your way up till our apartment and are then smacked in the face with a winter wonder land.