This year
Noah and I hosted our first family holiday event in Germany (we used to host
Thanksgiving in Phoenix, but the last one was over 2 years ago). We
figured there is no point starting small – we invited our family from both
sides! My parents and Noah’s brother/sister-in-law all flew in from
Texas, and Noah’s mother flew in from San Francisco. We had a fun-filled
2 weeks planned for them. And since we saw so much and did so much, Noah
and I decided that the visit deserves 3 individual blogs. I was tasked
with writing the first blog which takes us up to Christmas Day.
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| My artsy photograph of our Christmas tree using the bokeh technique |
The first to
arrive were my folks – landing Thursday the 19th. Since they always
suffer badly from jet lag, they were off for their naps right after I ate lunch
(they were full from their ‘cheese and snot sandwiches’ on the plane – straight quote from
Gary). While they were sleeping, I prepared the Steffens’ family traditional
Christmas cookie dough. Once they returned fresh faced (but still jet
lagged), I enlisted their help to roll and cut and decorate the cookies.
This is the first time Gary has had a hand in helping, and his Christmas
pick-axe was just lovely. Too bad he ate it before we had a chance for a
photo. Unfortunately they would have to wait until the next day to see
Noah, as he was off at his work’s Christmas party and didn’t come home until
after 11pm. Way too late for 2 oldies who are still on Texas time.
Noah left
early the next morning to meet his mother at the airport. An hour or so
after her plane landed, I received a frantic call from Noah saying he must have
lost his mother (before the trip even started!) – everyone else from her
plane already made their way out of security and he had seen no sign of
Margie! I reminded him that I had the same freak-out a few weeks ago with
our last visitors, and it turned out they were delayed from lost luggage.
30 minutes later Noah updated me that it wasn’t lost luggage – just damaged
luggage – and his mom was finally out of security. One new suitcase and a
few hours later they were finally on their way to the apartment.
Since our
last two guests (Seth and Marty) were set to arrive later that evening, we took
the opportunity to do some grocery shopping. After determining that the
cost of a turkey at Galeria Kaufhof was just ridiculous (~10 EUR per pound!),
we all piled into our new Honda Jazz to search for a turkey at the Pasing
Arcaden (mall). This isn’t as crazy as it sounds – there are actually 2
grocery stores attached to the shopping mall. And of course we managed to
park in the underground lot on the complete opposite side of where the Hit
grocery store is located. That’s ok – it provided some good exercise for
those world travelers. After locating a much more reasonably priced
frozen turkey and some other essentials, we begin the trek back through the
entire mall to the car. Only Sandy wanted to get some photos of the
lovely Christmas décor in the mall. As I waited behind with her so she
could snap a few photos, I see a woman and her dog walk by. The dog
proceeds to take a giant, runny dump just 2 feet from us. And the poor
woman had nothing to clean it up with! I felt so bad for her – luckily I
haven’t had that happen in public with our dogs, but Rita did once barf in a
restaurant. I handed her some red poop bags and a package of tissues, and
wished her luck. Sandy and I ran to catch up with the others (and leave
the nasty smell behind). Side note: I have successfully talked about
dog poop in 2 consecutive blogs. Winning!
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| The photo taken right before the dog poo incident |
A few hours
later Aunt Ellen and Uncle Rüdiger arrived at the apartment with Seth and Marty
in tow – but with 1 bag less than they started out with. One of
their bags was left in Austin! I am not sure why the majority of our
visitors in December have all had bag problems (3 issues with 3 different
airlines) – must be something to do with the holidays. Anyways, we kept
the evening low key and called it an early night to let everyone get their
sleep.
Saturday
morning we were ready to finally venture into the city and check out these
Christmas markets Noah and I had been talking about. We piled into the
public transportation and started the downtown market tour with the main
attraction– the Christkindlmarkt at Marienplatz.
Next stop on
the market tour – the Weihnachtsmarkt in der Residenz. This one is one of
our favorites – it is naturally smaller as it has to fit within one of the
courtyards of the Residence, and they have the much coveted Baumstriezel!
It is a Hungarian pastry (they call it Kürtőskalács – though in English we can
just say Chimney Cake) that is essentially a sweet bread dough that is wrapped
around a metal cylinder and baked as you watch. You then can choose a
topping that they will roll the hot pastry in – my recommendation is the
cinnamon and sugar (Zimt Zucker). I might have made a mistake in
introducing my mother to this as she spent the rest of the time in Munich
looking for more of them (she successfully found many in Budapest – I think her
tally was 3… one for each night we were there).
After a lunch
of sausages and Baumstriezel, we made our way to the Middle Age Christmas
market (Der Mittelaltermarkt auf dem Wittelsbacherplatz) – a first for Noah and
I. As there are so many Christmas markets in town (even one at the
airport), we prefer to not see every single one each year. It can become rather
tedious and monotonous if you see too many at once, as they all pretty much
have similar things. The Middle Age market one reminded me of a tiny
Renaissance Festival, but with a Christmas flare. Lots of handmade goods
out of leather, bark, glass, etc. I found some nice glass snowflake
ornaments myself.
After
everyone had their fill of shopping for the day (or at least Noah, myself, and
the parents did – Seth and Marty would stay on to replenish some items missing
in her lost luggage), the group headed up to the top of the Neues Rathaus at
Marienplatz (via elevator, thank you very much). We were treated to a
lovely 360 view of the city, and in the distance we could even make out the
outline of the Alps.
Sunday
morning was an early one for Seth and Noah – they were gone by 7am to take the
first train of the day to hit the slopes in Garmisch. The rest of us
slept for a few hours longer and reached Garmisch Classic (and the brothers)
for lunch. The two snowboarders met us at the bottom of the lifts and we
all took the gondola up the mountain (Margie’s first time riding a Gondola in
her life!) to eat at the Garmischer-Haus restaurant.
After taking
in the food and the views, we left the boys to finish their runs. We
checked out the town and (of course) their Christmas market.
We all met up
again to take the train back to town for a nice dinner of stew and birthday
cake. Technically, my mother’s birthday was the next day, but I had made
a giant 4-tiered monstrosity that would never come close to being finished
unless we started it ASAP. We went ahead and pretended anyways and sang Happy
Birthday a day early. Though don’t tell the German’s! They find it
to be horrible luck if you tell someone happy birthday early… but no one can
tell me what exactly happens!
The story
behind HORST – Noah and I were looking for cake toppers and found name
candles. Of course they don’t have Sandy, or any name with a Y.
Noah’s idea was to by ‘Astrid’ and ‘Andreas’
to have the letters for Sandra. Mine was to just buy ‘Horst’ and convince
her that was German for Sandy. After a quick email to my brother for a
tie-breaking vote, Horst it was! And she did believe that Horst meant
Sandy… until I started laughing and told her it is just a random man’s name.
Monday
brought my mom’s real 60th birthday. We celebrated by hitting
up Tollwood – yet another Christmas market, but this one is more on the
hippy/earthy side. Plus lots of drinking options beyond regular old
Glühwein. Mom and I found a winter hat and scarf, and Seth and Noah
bought coordinating ‘bff brother’ belts, or something like that.
For dinner we
celebrated at our favorite Greek restaurant Poseidon, where we had way too much
food and were given a free bottle of Greek wine per couple. Needless to
say we now have 4 bottles of wine at our apartment. We celebrated again
with a small candle in the shape of a birthday cake, and headed home to eat the
real stuff.
By Christmas
Eve we were ready to have an easy day. Since the weather was nice, we
took the S-bahn down to Lake Starnberg with the dogs. We had a nice walk
around part of the lake, and Marty was able to find her a nice rock to take
back to her dad (it’s their thing apparently).
Christmas
morning started with Noah (I joined a bit later) in the kitchen making our traditional
Steffens’ Danish Ebelskivers. Slowly the others woke up, and we all
feasted on the thousands (or at least it felt that way) of little balls of
dough dipped in granulated sugar.
There was no
time for Noah and I to sit as we were coordinating the Christmas dinner of
Turkey, homemade yeast rolls (that wanted to take over the kitchen, they rose
so much), homemade ginger cranberry sauce (that was actually leftover from
Thanksgiving….), au gratin potatoes, and green beans. Thank goodness we
had access to our upstairs neighbors’ oven – but even then it was hard to have
everything ready at the same time.
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We were able
to take one mid-day break to open presents. I think my favorites were the
antlers for the dogs (thanks Ellen and Rüdiger) – they reminded us of the dog
from the Grinch. Sadie just glared at me when I made her wear them, and
Rita actually froze. She lost the ability to move with those on her
head! My precious babies.
After
presents, we all squeezed into our little kitchen for our Christmas
feast. My dad found an amazing dry brine recipe that I would 100% recommend. It was
honestly the best turkey I ever had – even the white meat was super moist and
delicious! So of course, Gary took all the credit for how the bird came
out.
Dessert came
in the form of an apple pie we baked the day before (thankfully, as I have no
idea how we would have found time on Christmas day). It was off to bed
early for us all though, as we had to get up the next day for our next
segment/blog: Budapest!
