5 things I love about Christmas

Spending time with family and friends
Without a doubt, for me the best part of this season is spending quality time with loved ones. Hubby and I typically take turns spending either Christmas or New Years with each other's family and it's always so nice to spend that time together. Considering the fact that I live hundreds of miles and overseas from my family in Ireland, this makes the time we do spend together even more special. Now at some point we will choose to stay at our house in Germany and create new traditions around that but in the meantime we'll be enjoying going back and forth between our relations. 

Creating your own traditions 
I love the fact that everyone can decide for themselves what traditions they would like to uphold. For instance with my family in Ireland we have taken to wearing our silly Christmas jumpers and taking funny pictures. We'll also play games like trivial pursuit or Cluedo and watch Christmas movies. Or maybe we'll spend all morning in our winter pajamas. The nice thing is, anything goes! I've written a bit about our traditions in Ireland versus Germany before.

The food
Ah the food, the glorious food....! Germans don't do mince pies and that's one thing I really miss each year so when we make it over to Ireland we'll go crazy eating them and buying some to bring back to Germany. (Hubby loves them now too!). Heated mince pies in custard or cream are even more delicious. The Christmas dinner itself is also yummy. We typically serve turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, Brussels sprouts, roast vegetables, roast potatoes...And because it's the holidays, there's always an excuse to eat lots and lots of chocolate.

The Christmas spirit
This time of year it's nice to make an extra effort to think of others less fortunate. There are usually collections for Christmas hampers where you can donate food items in the supermarkets and at work. You can give to charities and/or visit your local nursing home. Now of course people can do charitable things all year around but I'm often busy with various things and this time of year really reminds me to stop and do something nice for others. 

Being off work
I like my job but it's still work and it is nice to have time off to relax and regroup! The way Christmas and New Year's fall means you can usually end up with two whole weeks off without having to use up too many of your annual leave. 

Honorary mentions - all the Christmas parties and get-togethers - it's a nice excuse to catch up with friends before the end of the year. Germans celebrate Christmas like no other with their wonderful markets - they are really beautiful.

Those are the first five things that came to mind.. What would make your list? Maybe I'll follow up with the five things I *don't* enjoy about Christmas, haha...

A few holiday photos

We are just back from a trip to Dublin. We had a really lovely time visiting family and friends and we loved introducing Mini to everyone. I hope this will be the first trip of many to her "second home"! Loads of people commented on what a happy baby she is and she seemed to enjoy being in a new place. The journey to and from Dublin was stressful though. On the way over we got distracted chatting to some friendly mormons on the train (as you do) and ended up forgetting one of our suitcases! Luckily it was found and we're getting it sent to us now we are back in Germany but when we realised at the time it was too late to go back for it or we would have risked missing our flight. At least it was a fun excuse to go shopping for some new outfits in Dublin!

However, our journey back to Germany was worse. First the flight was delayed almost an hour and a half and then we had to wait ages for the baby car seat to appear on the carousel causing us to then miss our train connection. Of course, Murphy's Law, the subsequent train connections were all delayed but the one we had been aiming for was perfectly punctual. We eventually ended up having to get a taxi home part of the way. By that stage poor Mini was overtired and was getting upset. It's awful when you are in a car and your baby is crying as there is little you can do, especially if you are not in a position to pull over. Distracting her with toys and songs didn't work long but in the end I showed her a cartoon on my phone and it calmed her down! We eventually made it in the door by 1am (we had left Dublin at 5pm) tired but glad to be back. We've decided to try to book flights earlier in the day in future and be more aware of how many bags we have with us!

No visit would be complete without enjoying some scones with butter, jam and cream with my afternoon tea! This was taken at a cute little cafe called The Cake Room in south Dublin.

I love seafood and Irish salmon is really delicious. In a restaurant called Taste in Dublin city centre they served it with sweet potatoes and asparagus.

The last picture is a Sunday roast with a pint of Guinness the GerMann enjoyed in one of the local pubs. I had the cottage pie.

We went to Airfield estate one day. This is a working farm in Dublin with a nice house and grounds with various farm animals. Here are some donkeys being fed. One of them clearly didn't know how to share and helped himself to his pal's food bucket too.

Another day we walked around Sea Point which is a beach in the south of Dublin. It's certainly not the prettiest of beaches. It's quite stoney. However I used to swim there as a child and it's still a really popular swimming area these days. Last time my brother was back in Dublin in December he swam there on Christmas morning which is a tradition for some Dublin people. I've never been brave enough myself as it is absolutely freezing that time of year in the Irish Sea!

The Christmas edition

Christmas this year was wonderful. The GerMann and I flew to Dublin a few days beforehand, and spent ten days there. My brother was also home from Australia and it was lovely having the whole family around. I also managed to meet up with most of my friends at some stage while we were back.

On the day itself we all pitched in to prepare the food which was a very traditional Irish Christmas dinner; turkey, stuffing, roast potatoes and vegetables, gravy, cranberry sauce and all followed by plum pudding, mince pies and custard. Delicious! After eating till we were totally stuffed we played some board games - cluedo and monopoly. The latter was just going on forever so in the end we just decided to count up who had the most money to decide on the winner (my sister's boyfriend).

We left Dublin with suitcases full of presents and returned to the freezing weather here. I found out the hard way that dragging suitcases through the snow is not easy! Luckily all our flights, buses and trains went as scheduled, not like a few years ago when my flight on christmas eve was cancelled due to the snow and I ended up missing Christmas with my family and not arriving back to Dublin until Stephen's day!

I was a little sad saying goodbye at the end of our visit as usual but I know we will fly to Dublin again in only a few months. It has also been quite nice here since we've been back. The snow is very pretty and I only had one easy day of work, since the office was quiet and now two days off. The GerMann picked up a cold in Dublin though and is suffering with a sore throat so we decided to stay in for New Year's Eve and have a nice evening zu zweit (just the two of us). We'll watch the fireworks in our neighbourhood.

There was a LOT of eating in Dublin and plenty of wine, so I think this month I will have to start going back to the gym to reduce some of the Weihnachtsspeck, which literally translate to 'Christmas bacon'. Haha, those Germans certainly have a word for everything!

How was your holiday season?

A New Year's Eve concert, a 30th birthday party to remember then back to Deutschland

I'm back in Germany again after two and a half weeks in Ireland. So it's time for a quick update.

Here is how our Christmas tree looked in the end!

This was the longest time I have been home since moving to Germany. The GerMann spent Christmas with his family then flew over to join me in Dublin in time for New Year's and after a week we flew back together. I spent the first week catching up with friends and family which was great- this also included a trip to Tipperary. I just love the cottages with the thatched roofs.

I normally find New Year's Eve can be a bit of an anticlimax. There is always so much pressure to have the best night ever and it can be difficult to decide what to do. The city centre can be overpriced and it is normally nearly impossible to get a taxi home. So house parties can be a good alternative. But I did that the last two years. This year in Dublin there was a lot organized in the city centre. What caught our attention was the New Year's Eve concert at college green. Tickets were only 10 euro and The Coronas, Riverdance and Paul Brady would be at it. The Coronas are great- I had seen them live before.

Finally something a bit different to do on New Year's Eve. But an outdoor concert in Ireland is very risky with Irish weather! So we were hesitating over whether to buy tickets or not. We headed into town on New Year's Eve anyway to meet up with friends and there was a really great atmosphere around Dame street and college green and it wasn't raining, in fact it was quite a mild evening, so we decided to go for it and buy tickets. I'm glad we did as the concert turned out great- and they had countdown with fireworks. Afterwards we meet up with friends for a few drinks in the International Bar and then Dakota.

Since the new budget came in, VAT has gone up in Ireland making everything more expensive except hotels and B&Bs which have had their tax reduced to try to entice more tourists to visit. What that means is that there are loads of fantastic offers at the moment. Through DealRush we bought a voucher for a lovely 4-star hotel in Galway at fantastic value (€119 for 2 nights B&B including a bottle of wine!).

Galway was beautiful- the hotel was perfect and we went for walks on Salthill prominade and ate and drank at some tradional irish style pubs and restaurants. Unfortunately the weather was quite rainy but if I recall correctly it rains the most in Galway out of everywhere in Ireland!

People over here always seem to be asking me about Irish food. Well, here are some examples of what we ate in Galway: Shepherd's Pie, Roasts and lots of fish!

Dublin also has some lovely areas of course.

Dun Laoghaire pier looked great all lit up.








We went for a walk around Kiliney beach one day and even saw some dolphins!

I also had my 30th birthday party while I was home. It was a joint party with my best friend and the whole night could not have gone better! It was great catching up with everyone, the venue worked out well and the cake my friend's sister made was amazing. My little sister also had a birthday while I was home and it was so nice to be there to celebrate with her.

In fact I had such a great time back in Ireland that I was dreading coming back to Germany a bit! But I think a lot of people feel a bit sad once the holidays are over and they have to go back to work. At the moment I am feeling rather frustrated with my career. That's the only area of my life right now that I am not happy with really. Am just not where I would like to be career wise and trying to figure out which direction to go. Am hoping the situation will improve over the next few months!

Returning to Germany was a little sad the first day but now I'm settling back into my life here again.Today I meet up with my other expat pals, which was a nice welcome back to Germany!

A few other pics from the trip: