Frohe Weihnachten!

Hello from Germany. We´re having a cozy Christmas here at my inlaws´ house. Last night we decorated the tree and opened prezzies. These are Christmas Eve traditions in Germany. Another interesting bit of cultural trivia - Santa keeps a rather low profile here. He brings oranges and chocolates on St. Nikolaus Day (Dec. 6), while Kristkindl (baby Jesus) delivers the real booty on Christmas eve.

All in all, we´ve been taking it pretty easy here - lots of reading, napping and eating. Our big outing was to the Nürnberg Christmas market last Thursday. Apparently it´s world famous. I saw advertisments for it in Zürich.

To be honest, after the Zürich Christmas market, I wasn´t expecting much. They had some really odd things for sale in Zürich. Barretts made out of giant plastic insects, anyone?

But the Nürnberg market was actually pretty fantastic. The toys, candy and decorations were really fun and kinda vintage-y - the biggest assortment of tiny dollhouse furnishings I´ve ever seen, old-timey picture books, meter-long hot dogs, little people made out of dried plums.

We got our fill of Gluhwein (mulled wine), served in little ceramic Santa boots, and Nürnberger sausages. In Nürnberg, you can either order "drei im weckla," three in a bun, or double the order with "sechs auf kraut," which is always fun to say.

OK, I think another nap is calling...