Joyeux Noel

Do you ever get a homesick feeling of last year? I mean, do you ever miss where you were the year before - miss where you lived, who you saw everyday, where you visited? Lately I've really been missing Belgium and the neighboring cities/countries we visited last year. As I've started to hear Christmas music and see all the festive decorations, I'm reminded how we spent our Thanksgiving/Christmas season last year. Below is a picture of the Christmas market in Brussels, Brock and I would go here at least twice a week. The market was beautiful with booths selling candies, Christmas decorations and lots and lots of bratwurst. All of the buildings were lit and almost every weekend they had different choirs sing in the square. It really made the Christmas season magical. So last December when all of Europe starts selling Christmas decor, Brock and I tried to pick something up from the different cities we happened to visit. I've been so excited to put them out this year that I thought I would share some of them.

This Christmas ornament was from Aachen, Germany. This little city is known for their large Christmas market they have every year. There were so many people there that we could barely walk around! But they had the most detailed pyramids, nutcrackers and smoking men I've ever seen!!

We got this ornament in Amsterdam. In fact, we bought it in the store behind the shoe (below).

Brock gave this smoking man to me for Christmas last year. He bought it in Aachen. If you've never used a smoking man, I will explain. First you remove his upper half of his body, put in a special incense and light on fire. Once the fire is out you put this body back together and smoke comes out of his mouth for about a 1/2 hour. It made my whole house smell like a Christmas tree.

Behind our little smoker is our German nativity. Brock got this on his mission in Leipzig, Germany.


Brock's beer stein from his mission. That kind of sounds funny...

I fell in love with this little skier in Aachen. It is so detailed and cute. Brock knew I liked it and bought it while I was looking somewhere else. It was a fun surprise.

And two of the things I miss the most:

Hot chocolate from Brasserie Merode. It was about 3 minutes from our apartment and we discovered their hot chocolate way too late. They give you a cup of steamed milk and a square of Belgian chocolate on a stick to stir in.... yum....




And of course - Belgian waffles, more accurately Liege waffles. There are two types of waffles, Belgian and Liege; Belgian waffles are topped with whipped cream, chocolate, strawberries etc and Liege waffles are made with pearl sugar which caramelizes the waffle so you don't put anything on top. And yes, I found a recipe that I'm going to try out this Christmas.

Even though I miss being in Belgium, I'm very happy to be home. The sad part about living far away is not being able to have family around to celebrate with. So we are happy to be back home and enjoying this holiday season with close family and friends.