2014 Holiday Recap

Basically, what it says in the post title.

Pete spent the beginning of December in Munich for work, where he managed this photo op:

Christmas is confusing here.

James performed several songs in several languages in the stairwell at the annual school Christmas party before the holiday break.  This one's in German (In der Weihnachtsbäckeri - In the Christmas Bakery)

And there was a nice (indoor!) craft time at the party, something we hadn't seen in previous years.

James' teacher, not actual Jeter.

We celebrated a couple of birthdays, of course:

wishing

And we had church.  Lots and lots and lots of church.  Our church moved from one to two Sunday services in December, so now the band pulls double duty. 

children participating one Sunday

We also put on our second Christmas Eve service - much easier the second time around since we kind of new what we were doing and had more help.

you can't blame the kid, he's at church A LOT.

We video-chatted present-opening with family again.

it's not an expat Christmas without a restock of Trader Joe's goodies

Our little nephew had open-heart surgery to repair several congenital defects, spending Christmas in the hospital.  It all went very well, though.  This was his fourth surgery since birth.

See, he's very happy with his new plumbing!

We spent Christmas Day with some Luxembourgish/Belgian friends from church, which included James explaining the rules to one of our favorite board games, King of Tokyo, in Luxembourgish (they speak English too, but it's good practice).

And fittingly, we spent Boxing Day with British friends, with a walk in Little Switzerland and a feast of Christmas leftovers.

a Christmas-y climber (she made it)

The weekend after Christmas we even had a bit of snow.

And then we spent a quiet New Year's Eve at our place with a couple of good friends, playing games and snacking.  (Not pictured).

And, lastly, Pete and I had our 12th (12th!?!) wedding anniversary on January 3rd.  We often forget or almost forget our anniversary, since it comes so quickly after the holidays.  But we invented an anniversary tradition this year in hopes that it will help us remember.  Last year, some French friends introduced us to the galette de rois at Epiphany (commemorating the arrival of the 3 magi/wise men/kings).  

So even though it was a couple days before Epiphany (the 6th), we saw the cakes at the shop this weekend and picked one up to eat on our anniversary.  Maybe seeing the cakes in the shops each year will help us remember!  Unless we move back to the US!

The cake is more like a flaky pastry with a marzipan filling (yum), and with a tiny plastic "gift" baked in.  The youngest family member sits under the table as the pieces are doled out, unbiasedly indicating who gets which piece.  The person who gets the piece with the gift is crowned king for the year.

And look who's king:

lucky kiddo

So there you have it.  Our third holiday season in Luxembourg is complete.  We have now lived in Luxembourg for approximately 2 years and 7 months.  We arrived in mid 2012 and now it's 2015, so we have officially "touched" 4 years in Luxembourg.

Happy New Year from the Ts!  We're looking forward to all 2015 has in store.