Hi Family!
Happy Sunday! Happy First Advent! Happy Christmas!
For those of you that don't know, on Sundays in Germany literally everything closes except the church, airport, and train stations. Isn't that wild?! Like even the grocery store. I can't believe it. Like in some ways it's good because I feel like you actually rest, but in others, as in I only have two more days in Germany and nothing is open today, it sucks. But you know what? After spending all day outdoors yesterday, a day indoors was just what I needed.
We woke up late (ie 9:30) and Max made us banana pancakes before taking the train back to Hamburg. Since it was a girls only Sunday we obviously partied! Just kidding. Tanja had plans for us to make Christmas cookies! The German kind with no nuts, jam in the middle and chocolate.
However, new home owner problems? Tanja didn't have a rolling pin. I've got to hand it to her for cleverness though because we used a beer bottle to roll our dough! Trust me when I say I could not stop laughing...only in Germany.
Was it well past noon? Maybe. Was I still shamelessly in my pajamas? Definitely. I literally did not change out of them until we had to go to Max's grandma's house to pick up cookie tins at 7 pm lol!
I'm not kidding when I say we spent hours rolling dough and cutting cookies. And guess what? I was singing along to Christmas songs the entire time. Hours upon hours! I think I might have just changed my mind about loving Christmas after all. I mean, don't get me wrong, people here spend money and buy presents. But it doesn't feel like that's the whole purpose of Christmas, mostly it's just to meet up with friends and family at the markets, have warm food and drinks, enjoy the lights and then go home. I'm a big fan of the German Christmas season.
Here was our baking progress:
We filled the cookies with jam. I may or may not have been really bad at counting when I was cutting the cookies so not all of them had a matching pair. Don't worry though, I fixed the problem by helping myself to the spares.
And finally, a chocolate glaze went on top!
After all the cookie production madness, we decided to decorate her pine tree outside and the inside with lights. However, we didn't plan for the lights to be too short to go anywhere. Sooooo, we hung a star and that was it for Christmas decorating. A little bit lame, but I feel like all the cookies we baked really made up for the lights that were lacking.
Anyways, for not doing a lot all day somehow the hours breezed by us again! I don't want this trip to end and to have to go back to reality. Poor Tanja has work tomorrow so she kind of has to accept it sooner than I do. Oh well, one more day and then I'll be back to reality. Good thing she and I are planning to sneak in one more adventure tomorrow!
Love you all,
Carolyn
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