So. We've just experienced our first Christmas in Berlin and it was unanimously voted as possibly the best Christmas ever. The only thing that would have made it perfect would have been snow, but that seems to be missing for the foreseeable future.
It was also declared to be very stress-free.
Barring one early morning and unavoidable incident that I will explain in due course...
Our Christmas expectations aren't particularly high. For example, I don't go crazy baking cakes and cookies, and our Christmas dinner is a fairly standard roast. As there are only the four of us (us plus Mum), I don't have to adjust my default cooking settings. We don't have turkey, preferring a leg of lamb instead. So dinner is easy. To us, it's basically a normal day but with presents!
Anyway, let me start on Christmas Eve.
Tim and I had been to our 'local' Kaisers - a quite nice supermarket - and bought a number of lovely items for lunch. We'd also found some alcohol-free 'champagne'... and a small bottle of the real thing for me. Our lunch was a feast of truffle pâté, smoked salmon, Serrano ham, good old hot-buttered toast and Christmas cake (the only baking I'd done). Yummy! And success #1.
In the evening I heard the church bells start ringing. Tunelessly as usual. But this time the cacophony was joined by the distant and melodic sound of trumpets. I went out the front to see if I could work out what was going on and ended up standing outside listening to a brass band playing Carols at the hotel down the road.
Later that evening, Tim answered the door to our immediate neighbours who unexpectedly and very kindly brought around a card and three packets of delicious, home-baked cookies! Hurriedly, I wrote a card and sent Tim back to deliver it.
For the first time in ten years, I managed to get all the gifts wrapped by 8pm. Normally, I'm still frantically battling with paper and Sellotape at 2am on Christmas night with my knees and back screaming in protest. Therefore, I was able to properly relax with my family in the evening. Success #2.
I managed to get Rhiannon's stocking up to her room without incident - no dropping presents everywhere, no waking her up, no accidentally setting off the Light Saber she'd asked for... Success #3.
On Christmas morning Rhiannon woke at 6.30am. Fearing the potentially heart-stopping sounds of a Light Saber going off, I suggested we open the stocking downstairs in the warm. So after lugging the thing upstairs at 2am, holding my breath every step of the way, I ended up taking it back down again! She enjoyed her presents very much. Success #4.
Then, at 7.30 there was a slight commotion in the hallway...
Raymi the cat had decided to enter into the gift-giving spirit by bringing his own little present to us... a live and totally unharmed field mouse. This is the first time in his entire seven year life that he's done that.
Mayhem ensued. The first thing I did was shut Kita in one room and turfed the cat back outside and locked the catflap. However, I couldn't catch the rather endearing rodent and after a couple of circuits of the room it took refuge under the fridge.
Time to wake Tim up. He ended up dismantling the kitchen cabinets and we finally captured the mouse an hour and a half later and released it at the end of the garden. Lucky little mouse! Success #5.
Timings for the Christmas dinner were put back a little but that too worked out well. Success #6.
All presents were a great success. I actually had mine a few weeks ago. Tim ordered me an iPhone (yippee!) but Apple telephoned me on the home phone to confirm his order, so his fabulous surprise was scuppered. Thanks Apple! I also received a couple of gorgeous antique necklaces and a raclette grill.
We got Mum some tickets for a classical concert on New Years Day and Rhiannon had tickets for Apassionata - a horse show. She squealed with delight. Rhiannon also recieved a numer of kits to make things such as slime, soap and candles... lots of mess potential!
Tim received a telescope and a weather centre so is now talking about focal lengths, millibars and other atmospheric gibberish.
Sucesses #7 - #154.
The rest of the day was spent playing Pictionary (another present) and generally lazing around. Boxing Day has been much the same.
We did drag ourselves out for a walk in the forest around Grunewaldsee where we met more dogs than we've ever seen at the same time. I may need to employ a dog trainer as Kita did not enjoy this part of the walk at all.
There was also a rather disturbing number of families out competing in what appeared to be family athletics competitions. A circuit was set up with wooden exercise equipment and groups of people ran around the track, having races and stopping to work out on the bars etc.
We didn't join in.
So it's all been good so far! I do hope you all enjoyed your Christmas too.