This is a little late, but I couldn't post these earlier before people received them.  For our close family, I decided to make ornaments this year instead of Christmas cards.  The idea sounded fun and easy in my head, but turned out to be harder than I thought.  
The post office here is always busy around the holidays, so to avoid being shunned by everyone else in line, I would only bring 5-6 ornaments to ship at a time.  This meant that I went to the post office and stood in line at least 6 different times to ship these little things, in addition to our other Christmas packages that had to go out.  

Also, salt dough isn't as easy to work with as I had envisioned!  It took me 3 batches before I deemed them acceptable to give out, and even then they weren't as perfect as I had hoped they would be.  

I hope all who got one though, liked them though and that they didn't look like a 5 yr old made them! :)

I'm loving the new homepage on Etsy where it prompts different collections.  This was my biggest complaint with the site that's otherwise wonderful - you couldn't browse.  Now I just need my friends all to all start browsing and favoriting things too, so like on Pinterest, I can have lots of different cool stuff to look at.  

Click on the images below to go to the Etsy page.

Jason and I had our first Christmas of it being just the two of us this year.  It was quiet, but it was really great.  We took our time drinking coffee, making the traditional breakfast casserole, and opening presents together and had a really great morning.  I got a new lens for my camera for Christmas, so I played with the old one and the new one around the house for a bit before guilting myself into preparing for our Christmas dinner.

We hosted Christmas dinner for 10 at our house in the evening.  I for once, really didn't overdo it with cooking, and it was so nice.  Maybe I'm finally starting to get the hang of hosting?  We did pot luck and I made a honey glazed ham and a salad, along with some nuts, olives, & cheese that I put out for appetizers.  Having multiple people plus myself in and out of the kitchen made me yearn for more counter space though!  Next house??  Maybe?? The Kuwait house still holds the title for kitchen with the most storage & counter space, but also for most ugly...

It was a good first Christmas in Germany, but I'm looking forward to being with family next year.

Hope you all had a wonderful day!  Now what to do for New Years!  

I'm doing it by myself this year, but I had to have a Christmas puzzle to work on.  It reminds me of Christmas in Ohio.  I'm rushing to finish it though because we have company coming for dinner on Christmas day!  Probably not my best idea ever, but am enjoying the quiet with my Grandma's Christmas music on in the background in the meantime.

While in Munich, I signed us up for a Royal Castle Tour that took us from Munich into the Alps to visit a small mountain village and two of King Ludwig II's palaces.  

The first palace, Schloss (meaning Palace in German) Linderhof, was very small but intricate.  Our tour guide there was very good and was able to give us some insight on the thinking and thought process behind the extravagant and somewhat odd French style decor.  

After Schloss Linderhof, we headed to Schwangau, where the famous Neuschwanstein Castle was built.  Rick Steves has a really good 5 minute video below, if you want to know more about the castle and Ludwig II.

You unfortunately couldn't take photos within the castle, but the video above shows it a little.

After Dachau we headed to downtown Munich for some merriment.  We ate at the Augustiner Brewery Friday night, Saturday we did an all day tour of King Ludwig II's castles (next post), and Sunday we slept in and headed back to Wiesbaden.

Munich of course had its own Christmas Market.  It was hosted in the Marionplatz, the main square in front of the town halls.  This square is hectic and busy without the Christmas Market, so it was a bit overwhelming with all the festivities packed in there.  The boys enjoyed some Gluwein (warm spiced red wine) as I looked.

As part of my brother's European vacation, we planned one "big" trip down to Munich where we spent two nights.  On our way down we stopped in Dachau to see the concentration camp memorial.  To learn more about it, click here.

With my brother in town the past week, I've played tour guide to our region.  Exploring many parts that I haven't even been to yet myself.  With the Christmas Markets in full swing, its a good time for company to be in town.  Here are some snippets from some of our exploring.

Rudesheim is part of the Rheingau region, a well known Riesling Route, that's about 30 minutes from us.  The town sits right on the Rhein River is very quaint and has lots to offer tourists, including one of the best Christmas ornament stores.  Since its a touristy town, it has the added bonus that most of the stores & restaurants speak English as well.

Heidelberg is a city a little less than an hour south of us.  We made the trip down there last week to see Heidelberg Castle, once one of the most impressive Castles in the region.  We got lucky and they were hosting a portion of their town's Christmas Market within the castle grounds.  Although, Avery and I didn't bring enough cash and had to take the 300 step staircase down to get cash and then back up again in order to shop.  ATM's and bathrooms - not something you can always count in on Germany.  Most of the castle is not open to tour, but there is a cellar with a cute cafe next to one of the castle's claim to fame - the largest wine barrel in the world.

I've been decking the halls and filling our home with the smell of Christmas Cookies.  My brother comes into town on Sunday, so I've been rushing to get everything ready.  I've still got quite a bit to do today, but the cold I've been struggling with all week is making camping in front of the computer/tv look a lot more appealing than running the vacuum.  We'll see...