Christmas Day

Christmas day brought another round of traditional German breakfast and then all 4 kids went upstairs to play.  The weather was so nice they even spent some time outside in the backyard.
Santa came with a nice variety of stocking stuffers including Berlin souvenirs and other items (thanks Chris and Amanda!!!!) Gravitrax, Benjamin's Christmas gift, got a lot of play time as did the cool little monkey toys that the Neves brought over.
After a morning of relaxing we all headed into town to Alexanderplatz  because while sightseeing the previous day it was discovered that this Christmas Market

would be open on Christmas day.  And this market had a real ice skating rink!!  The kids had so much fun at our little, fake ice skating rink in Zehlendorf, that they were all game to go again.
Chris gets the award for the day for being the only adult out there with all 4 kids.  Two of which needed quite a bit of help to stay upright!

Benjamin was VERY frustrated after a time or two around the rink.  He had so much fun at the tiny rink mostly because it was relatively empty and they could just go out there and play around.  Here at Alexanderplatz it was very crowded, much more slippery

due to the fact that it was real ice and also a much harder and colder landing when you fell and you pretty much just had to skate around along with the crowd.  After her went around a time or two he came off bawling saying he was DONE!  He didn't want to skate

anymore!!  Josie was very encouraging and talk him into giving it another go.  He did and ended up skating by himself in the end and all 5 of them skated for over an hour!
We ended the day with a big meal back at our house.  I wanted to cook a traditional Christmas ham but apparently they don't sell pre-cooked hams here.  I looked it up on the free advice Berlin page, asked around and everyone said that the butcher will just give you a big piece of raw meat and then you need to cook it yourself.  I

was not up for that as I've never done it before so I opted for a bunch of different kinds of bratwurst and sausages cut up and pan fried.  Along with a bunch of roasted vegetables, traditional Rot Kohl- German cooked, red cabbage.  I decided to buy this

premade from a jar because I did not want to be stuck in my teeny tiny kitchen all Christmas.  It was nearly as good as home made but it wasn't bad at all and it was definitely the right choice.  Julie even said that everyone she knows buys the premade stuff!

We all went to bed full and satisfied with an amazing Christmas spent with good friends.  THANKS so much Neves family for spending Christmas with us.  It was way brighter and more lively with you guys here!!