Christmas is Coming

My good friend, Eva, and I went for a
nice festive coffee at a beautifully
decorated green house/ cafe/gift shop

This year we decided to get the kids mostly experiences rather than things for Christmas which cut down significantly on the stress for shopping.  I was able to enjoy the baking and all of the lights that decorate Berlin during this time of year without the panic of "what more do I need to buy."  It seems our Christmases here have become much less big and hectic and much more simple and pure.  I think I prefer it here except for the fact that we miss our family and friends this time of year more than ever!!

Our good friends Beth, Jochen, Louis and Maya came over for a Christmas baking party.  It worked well because we have two ovens and because Beth and I decided that we should all make our dough the night before.  That way the dough can sit in the fridge overnight and we would be ready to go with the baking and decorating from the get go. Otherwise it just takes too long.

All of the ingredients

Making the dough the night before

They do have M&Ms here but not in the Christmas colors. 
So we decided to just pick out the other colors as much as possible. 

The boys were engaged for a big chunk of the afternoon but soon found themselves playing video games waiting for the cut out gingerbread cookies to cool so we could decorate it.
Marty, sadly, was in Seattle for the week and missed out on the fun.

Cookies for days.. months!!!