Christmas

Otto lived and died by the chocolate advent calendar this year. And when we woke up on the 24th of December and were able to eat the last and largest chocolate out of his calendar, I thought we might all burst with gladness. 

He kept telling everyone in our family we only had to go to bed one more time and then THEN it would be Christmas. 

I convinced Ben our family should go ice skating on Christmas Eve. He was super skeptical. Luxembourg City had a Winter Lights festival this year, and as part of the celebration and Christmas Market, they had transformed Place Guillaume into an outdoor ice skating rink. 

Weihnactsmarkts

Luxembourg Kreschtmaart

I took full advantage of the Luxembourg Christmas Market this year, visiting four times -- once as family, once with Ben, once with a group of friends, and once with just Otto.

It's a small market in comparison to the larger, more famous German markets, but the allure of Christmas sounds, hot chocolate, sausage, raclette, fresh grilled salmon sandwiches, grompere kichelcher, roasted almonds, rides on the ferris wheel and shopping were enough to lure me there multiple times. 

17 Months

Thanksgiving day approached and with it, the familiar sadness of living in a place where nothing would seem special or feel special when you know it should be. Especially when social media is quick to tell me just how warm and magical and happy a holiday is for everyone I know. 

Determined to create a little magic of our own, I rallied a group of our American friends and set out to find a turkey. We postponed our feast from Thanksgiving Thursday (husbands were working and it was a school night for children) to Saturday, two days later. 

As luck would have it, the turkey was available for pick up on Thanksgiving Thursday -- giving Ingrid and me our own little turkey day party. Ben ordered the turkey three weeks earlier from Provençale, a restaurant supply store for which we have a membership. He didn't bother bother to ask how much it would cost; he only asked for the biggest bird they could provide. 

This is Thanksgiving we were talking about. Money was no object. 

Otto's Hair

 

Big changes around here.

For nearly all of Otto's life he's had long hair. It's been his identity. To me, to him, and to others.

Ben and I always agreed that when Otto wanted his hair cut, we would cut it.

The moment arrived.

16 Months

My personal highlight of the past month was a visit from Ben's uncle, Larry Pond. We knew Larry was in Paris on one last hurrah. The night before Ben was scheduled to fly to Utah for a week, we heard from Uncle Larry -- he wanted to come to Luxembourg!