Cute.

It was my hat, then Scotty's, now Andrea loves it...

Christmas Markets

The day after Thanksgiving is supposed to be filled with non stop shopping. Not so much here since the day after our Thanksgiving was Sunday and all the stores were closed. :)

The Christmas Markets were open though, so while trying to keep with tradition, we girls went out shopping: Andrea, Sierra, Michaela, and Mommy. :) We all braved the below freezing temperatures and insane crowds. We are awesome. Someone should give us candy.

The boys stayed home. Paul had some work to catch up on in order to fund our outing and Scotty stayed behind because he needed a day of rest. :)

Downtown Hamburg doesn't have just one Christmas market... I think it has a zillion. There are little clusters of markets everywhere and some of them are bigger than others. We visited the "three" big markets... and bought a few gifts, but mostly we ate. :) Warm crepes, and these things...


Profetjes... something like that. KP made me some one day at her house in a special little Dutch pan. YUMMY, but I think from Holland.

The girls wanted a blue boot full of hot chocolate and I said no, but when we got lost and twenty minutes later circled around the same booth I gave in. We are now the proud owners of two ugly blue boots... which you can return for your deposit, but many people keep and "buy" them.

OH NO! MY NOSE IS FROZEN.

Saturday Thanksgiving...

This year we got together with three other American families and had a giant dinner. :) 9 adults and 12 kids... ages: 12, 10, 8, 6, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2.

I like the part where there are four two-year olds. :) We should have taken a group picture... :(

It was actually a pretty calm event thanks to some movies, fun toys to play with and a few iPhones.

...and no holiday is complete without a sick child. Poor Scotty was up this year. He didn't feel well in the morning and we thought we would skip the entire event but towards the afternoon he perked up and went about the rest of the day/weekend without any "yuckies".

Here is Andrea eating chips out of his "yucky" bowl. :) Good thing he didn't use it... it was also her hat earlier in the day.
It was good to have a bunch of Americans to hang out and have fun with. I'm thankful I'm not alone in this big crazy foreign country. :)

Hey Grandma! I almost forgot to put the evaporated milk in the pumpkin pie!!!

Thursday Thanksgiving

Just another normal day here in Germany... kids went to school and husband went to work. Making Thanksgiving Dinner for Scotty's class saved the holiday though.

Even though we planned to celebrate Thanksgiving with other Americans on Saturday it's just not the same. You always feel like your missing out on the actual holiday day. (I can say "always" now because I've spent enough holidays away to be an expert on the matter.)

Since I am an expert on the matter I did something to make sure I was amused on Thanksgiving Thursday. I offered to make Thanksgiving Dinner for the class. :) ...a simple version of course. :)

So on Thanksgiving I made turkey, mashed potatoes, corn and pumpkin pie. (Shelly made the crust because I hate making crust.) :) We took it into Scotty's class and fed it kids who, for the most part had never had "Thanksgiving". It took a bit of convincing to get the kids to try a bite of pumpkin pie. Who wants to eat a pumpkin pie? I should have just called it "PIE" and I probably would have done better. Actually, most kids did try it, but I had a few refuse. My own son didn't even like the pumpkin pie, but he's half Canadian... so it's explainable.

Here is Shelly reading books and explaining what a pilgrim is and why it's okay to put marshmallows on a dinner food.

Afterward lunch the kids went out to play and Shelly and I finished off ALL of the pumpkin pie. :) The kids returned and we made paper turkeys out of their feet and hands and that made me happy too.

Shelly also made this cute turkey and asked all the kids what they were "thankful" for.

Scotty's answer? "My mom because she always lets me play wii."

Andrea did great the whole day... just hanging out with the big kids. :)

International Fair

Last Saturday was the kids "International Fair" at school. It is a giant fundraiser for the school at which we already pay a giant tuition. Better than selling wrapping paper I guess... :)

From what I hear this fair is the biggest school event for the year. Every country comes up with their own booth and sells things from their country... typically food. So I spent some time eating some really good food from Japan, Mexico, and New Zealand... and it was all made by real Japanese, Mexicans, and New Zealanders, so it was homemade and yummy. :)

I also spent a little time at the American booth playing games with kids and handing out tootsie rolls and silly bands as gifts. The American booth sold Root Beer, Hagan Daas ice cream, candy, brownies made from a box, and... Jack Daniels Whiskey.

Yep, alcohol at a school event.

I've been to this school's events before where wine and champagne was being offered, but this was different because it was noon and they were selling whiskey to people! :) It became oh-so-much-weirder when I saw people walking around selling SHOTS OF TEQUILA for two euros! It's not a bar, it's a school! ...and it's noon!! ...but people were buying and drinking it and I even watched some of the older kids trying to buy it. :)

Crazy...

The kids had fun though, I was happy to see them running around with their friends drinking root beer and eating American candy. :)

Oh, the Canadian booth... there wasn't one. :( There is only a handful of Canadians at the school and they just opted out this year. I tried to rally them together during the last week so I put Paul in a booth... but there really wasn't time to put it together. Next year though. They can sell tim-bits, swiss chalet sauce, and maple syrup. :)

This year some of the smaller or less represented countries combined with a common "name" like, "Scandinavia". I guess America could have been "North America" and could have included Canada ...but they didn't. :)

I did buy some Canadian bagels last week to support them... even though I'm not even sure how bagels relate to Canada. :)

Lanterns!

In Germany, November 11th is St. Martins Day.

For St. Martins Day there is a story about a rich guy who was going somewhere and gave his coat to a cold, poor guy. It's a way more involved story than that of course... and I'm not even really sure how a Lantern fits in the storey, but the kids all make lanterns in school before hand and that night they take their lanterns and walk around outside with them. I think there is supposed to be a horse involved and a band.

UGH.... hold on....

here.... I hate wikipedia for unknown reasons... but here you can read ALL about it because I'm not doing the holiday justice.

So Scotty made a lantern at school. His wonderful mommy came in to school to help him while Andrea screamed in the background. :) It's a see through paper wrapped into a cylinder shape. It has a bottom and a hole on top. A stick attaches to the top and a little light hangs down into the middle of the cylinder and it lights up the "Lantern".

Back in the day people used candles and I'm sure some still do. No qualms about giving fire to kids here... I still remember the play group Scotty went to in Denmark where they gave each child a FLAMING candle to carry across the room to place on the windowsill. All. By. Themselves. I stress when my kid has a full cup of juice.

So all the kids met at school at night but it was too windy and rainy to go outside so they walked around the school with the lights off. : /

It was loud and chaotic and next year I'll do it with just my kids or a small group, but it was a fun little tradition. The lantern was cuter when it was outside and glowing. ...and I think there are songs involved too.

I tried to be a slacker parent and just buy a lantern for Andrea, but they don't sell them on Lantern Day. You have to buy them in advance. Whatever. This reminded me of not being able to buy a pumpkin on Halloween. I had these two incidents in mind when I bought three turkeys at the store today. Buy it when you see it. That's the new rule.


This is Scotty's best friend. They are both crazy... :)

Frozen Corn

This Thanksgiving I want everyone to be thankful for Frozen Corn.

Frozen Corn is EXTREMELY hard / near IMPOSSIBLE to find in Hamburg.

I seriously check for it every time I go into a grocery store. It's never there! It doesn't even have an empty spot where it should be, they just don't carry it.

This seems so stupid to me. They have every other kind of vegetable frozen... except for corn.

I know my mom is thinking right now, "They must have frozen corn." :)

...and I guess they do have it... or they did. Once. ...but I've never seen it since. Paul found it once and he filled a freezer drawer with it.

If I ever find it again I will buy it ALL, and I will do so without any regard for others who also want frozen corn. You all remember the "Dorito Incident"?

At first I thought I just had not found the special frozen corn grocery store. Just like any poor ex-pat, I know the sad reality of having to go to five different stores to get: rice krispies, hot dog buns, cheddar cheese, marshmallows, and sweet potatoes. (Which isn't that odd of a shopping list...)

I hadn't put too much effort into the corn until now. Now that I am aware of how silly-hard it is to find frozen corn, it's become my habit upon entering any grocery store. Pay one euro for cart, buy 12 liters of milk, look for frozen corn... sad, but true

I have two bags of frozen corn left from when Paul hit the Corn Jackpot a few months back. So no worries, this Thanksgiving we can eat corn. Phew!

I did fill a section of my freezer with turkeys though, because I know that soon enought they will be as elusive as frozen corn is...