The next week was a bit more quiet for me. Manja had her company Christmas event on Tuesday while I got to chill and update my blog!
On Wednesday night we caught up a bit earlier to walk through the Rotes Rathaus Christmas Market, right in the center of town. It was predictably crowded, but we enjoyed a nice walk in the crisp winter air.
Symbol of Berlin: The TV tower at Christmas
Thursday evening we headed to Katrin and Kilians place for a Christmas dinner. Katrin had selected a three-course-menu, which we all cooked together. It was a delicious and creative mix of food. Ilka and Jana joined us as well and we chatted the night away, reminiscing about the year and talking about plans for the future.
By Friday evening we just needed a break and decided to make pizza and watch Christmas movies for the evening 🥱😴
On Saturday we prepared for the Christmas trip to Cottbus (wrapping presents, packing) and went over to the Königliche Gartenakademie. The plan was to head over to the Christmas Gardens at the Botanic Gardens, but it was bitterly cold and we were not quite prepared for it appropriately. Rather than freeze we decided to head home and spend another evening watching Christmas movies 🙃
Sunday, Manja headed over to Cottbus to spend time with her family. I still had to work Monday and this way Odin, the cat, would not be alone quite as long. I made use of the free afternoon to finally get my Scrum Master Certificate from training I did in October. Passed first go too, might have over-prepared on the day 😅
Monday night I did my last-minute Christmas shopping. I knew exactly what I wanted to get Manja, but didn’t have a chance to actually buy it yet, so spent the whole evening at the Kudamm, mostly waiting in line for the cashiers 😂
On the morning of Christmas Eve I spent a few hours chatting to my family, coincidentally hitting the exact moment where they unwrapped my gift to them: The Annual Family Calendar. Right after I finished chatting, Butzi and Aki picked me up on their way to Cottbus. They dropped me right at the doorstep of Steffis place while entertaining me with conversation for the whole drive. A more relaxed method of transport would not have been possible! I arrived dressed for Christmas – including a new jumper I obtained as a Gift for Manja. She really wanted me to wear a Christmas sweater last year, but I refused, so I thought I’d make up for it this year by turning up in one… turned out to be a good idea, she really loved it 🙂
We set everything up for Coffee and Cake just in time for Hagen, Henri, Sophia and Manjas Grandparents to arrive. We feasted on too much cake before doing a big present opening moment, where gifts and wrapping paper were flying everywhere. This resulted in an extended wrapping-paper-throwing battle between Henri and I 😁.
For dinner Steffi had organised a traditional Christmas dinner to be catered, as her kitchen would habe been way too small for a roast for 10 people. Hagen, Henri and I went to pick it up. The place was sending out orders like ours all night, and we arrived in our designated time-slot only to realise that we had left the order docket at home and Steffi had put her name down for the order. A brief phone-chat later we were allowed to take along the food, which was ready to go in commercial bain-maries. Unfortunately they were filled with water to keep them hot, but not sealed at the top. This made them awkward and heavy to carry, and prone to spilling water in Hagens car. We placed them in the boot strategically, dropping the back seat so that I could do my best to hold them. We proceeded to slowly drive the calmest possible route home, while I attended to spilling water with my (clean!) hanky. We avoided hills, but got caught on a couple of cobblestone streets, and by the time we got back my hankies were soaked with hot water, though the car was mostly dry. Success!
Dinner really was delicious, while we all ate too much there was still plenty left over. One of the gifts we got for Hagen was a card game called smash-up. We familiarised ourselves with the rules and played a round before Hagen had to go home for the night and us making a plan to play more tomorrow.
We started early on Boxing Day, as I dropped Manja off to catch up with Anne – you may remember her from the wedding we went to last year. While Manja and Anne went for a walk, I headed back and spent the morning watching fairytales with Steffi – the fairytales being a well established family tradition for Christmas 😁
Toward noon I picked Manja up and we headed over to Hagens, where we went on a tour of his Cattle Yard. It was super interesting but also freezing cold! On our way back we picked up Kai and then played Smash-up the remainder of the day. After an early dinner we dropped Kai off home and picked up our stuff, returning to Hagens place where we spent the evening chatting about Life, the Universe and everything. We also patched the air mattress we would be sleeping on as it had sprung a leak…. Though apparently not perfectly successful as the next morning we awoke almost lying on the floor.
After a nice breakfast we headed back to Steffis where we spent a couple of hours before going to Manjas Grandparents place for Coffee and Cake in the afternoon. This is the day and place where most of the family gets together and people were arriving throughout the day, including Alex and his family from Remagen. We had many conversations and ate too much once more, and I got to try out Henris Lego “Hidden Side” kit. I came into the picture about half way through the building process and once done loaded the AR kit onto my phone. I got to say, they did a good job at combining lego and AR, allowing you to hunt various ghosts in your actual kit. Great fun! As the day drew to a close Kai was kind enough to drop us off at the Train station as we headed back home.
Gift to the grandparents: LED Torches for the garden.
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