Mere Hours To Go...

...until we'll all (i. e. my parents, my sister, some close family friends and myself) meet at my parents' place for Christmas Eve. That is the most important part of Christmas for most Germans, and we are no exception.
Most families have a traditional meal they serve for festive occasions; ours on Christmas Eve is Frankfurters and spuds salad. Of course, it is the same delicious spuds salad my Dad always makes; you can find his recipe here.
We will also exchange our gifts tonight. The (real) candles on the tree will be lit. It will be a cosy evening of togetherness and harmony (provided we don't sing!).

I wrapped my presents yesterday. Together with the ones sent from England to my parents and sister, they make quite a nice pile, don't they!

Another impressive pile is sitting on the sideboard in my living room, next to the Christmas cards I found in my mail box this year. There have been a few more cards arriving since I took the picture, but you get the idea. These presents are all from my Yorkshire family (they really do spoil me!), and I will open them on Christmas morning. I will then ring my mother-in-law for a nice chat (usually takes an hour).

On the 26th, RJ will join me here for a few days. We'll be at my parents' again for dinner, and probably go for walks (weather permitting) and generally just enjoy spending time together and try not to talk about work too much :-)

I am very much looking forward to all of this, and I hope you have plenty of reasons for looking forward to Christmas, too, no matter which way you choose to spend it. 

Let me end this post with some pictures I took over the last 2 weeks.

On the morning of the 13th, I still had hopes for a White Christmas:

But it was all gone by the next day, and now we are having temperatures more like March than what you'd expect in December. The birds seem to believe it, too, and I am almost waiting for the first flowers to pop up.

This one was taken on the 17th. I just had to try and capture that beautiful sunrise, seen from my kitchen window.

One day and one hour later, a different picture:

And this morning:

Merry Christmas to all of you!