christmas 2013

Christmas felt rather fast and furious this year.  With school extending all the way through December 20th (!) and with me leaving for Spain early on the morning of the 26th, a lot of festivities felt packed into a few days.  Not that we actually have a lot going on--we don't--but there was never a leisurely stretch of days to do Christmasy things and hang out by the tree.

We did do our Solstice trip to the beach, which I love.  We have a fun lunch at Crushcakes, head to Carpinteria State Beach and do whatever tidepooling we can do (the tide was pretty high this year, but it was still fun) and head home for a dinner of something cozy like soup or chili and later have hot tea and cookies and a bonfire.  That is so Christmassy to me!  This is the third or fourth year we have done the winter solstice this way.  (By the way, this year I made Summer Harms' chili and it was great.)

We made the roll and cut Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve and that turned out to be a fun project for that day.  In the afternoon Dieter and I went to church with my parents.  Rainer was having a fit, so I left him home with Ken.  That night we had cheese fondue.  On Christmas day we opened presents and had a brunch here and later went down to my parents' house and my mom made a super lovely meal.

That's it!  Early the next morning I was off to LAX before the sun came up.

I'm going to do a separate post about the cookies and the advent calendar because I love those traditions so much--they deserve more pictures and their own post.