As expected, our December looked very different than years past, though it’s not the first time that we have had to change up our holiday traditions. First, we had our life in California, then our life in Germany, then our “Big Trip” through Europe during Covid, then the year we were renovating our house and staying with Steffen’s dad and finally, a few more years in our house in Germany. So the girls are pretty good at being flexible! That said, there are some favorite traditions that I wanted to continue, even if they looked different.

We usually get our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving (often the First Advent), so this year I decided to put ours up on November 30th. We had to get creative to have something small enough to move since we would be in three different locations before the new year, so I printed some photos of years past and added coloured lights and small decorations. Our place in Nelson had an artificial tree up when we arrived so we used that one instead. That was so thoughtful of them!

As I mentioned previously, I made some Advent calendars for the girls. This has always been one of our favorite holiday traditions, so it was important to continue it. The girls were very grateful and we ended up having a lot of fun doing the various activities throughout December. It was very special, and I’m really glad I did that.

We also make sugar cookies every year, so one day the girls received cookie cutters and frosting to decorate in their Advent calendars and we had a cookie making afternoon. The house smelled so good!

(Almost) every year we see The Nutcracker, sometimes in a community hall and sometimes at the Opera House in San Francisco and everything in between. I looked around for a production but the one in Nelson was already sold out, so we didn’t get to go this year. The girls knew that made me sad, so they put on a makeshift performance on Christmas Eve for us! So sweet! And I had found some of their favorite pens (IYKYK) in a Nutcracker theme to put in their makeshift stocking. A fun way to continue our tradition. And hopefully next year we can find a big production where we can dress up and go all out for our tradition.

For the past several years, we have made gingerbread houses with friends. I spotted some kits at the grocery store in Nelson, so we did them one afternoon at the farm. We missed the friends we usually do it with, but we still had fun getting creative and eating too much sugar. We did have some new friends that were curious–if you look closely, you can spot some chickens on the deck eyeing our candy.

Then it was time for actual Christmas, and we tried to keep things simple. On Christmas Eve, we FaceTimed with the German side of our family, set out cookies for Santa and finished up last minute details, including making these paper stockings. At some point during the night Santa came, and then it was present time on Christmas morning. Another tradition we have is “Nikolaus”, who comes on December 6th, usually brings the girls matching Christmas pyjamas that they wear Christmas Eve. Since that was not possible with our limited suitcase space, he brought the girls matching Christmas socks, which they all wore on Christmas morning.

We had a nice, relaxing day, opening presents, hanging out in the house, watching movies, eating cinnamon cake for breakfast and tacos for dinner, FaceTiming with our American family, playing games and enjoying our time together. Olivia made everyone these amazingly creative boxes that she decorated to fit each person’s interests and filled with our favorite candy. She had been working on them for at least a month, bringing the materials from place to place, from Japan to New Zealand. It was so incredibly thoughtful! Steffen and the girls got me a beautiful necklace that I had spotted in Japan which was very sweet. Also, our hosts dropped off this Kiwi board game which was so kind. Towards the end of the day, Steffen and I got out of the house and took a beautiful walk through the farm which was a great end of the wonderful holiday!