The girls left out some treats for Santa and the reindeer then headed off to bed. We have had many discussions over the last three years about how Santa comes in our house as we don't have a fireplace or chimney. Thankfully we have a large patio and sliding glass doors so we just make sure to leave one of them unlocked on Christmas Eve. Santa just lands on the patio and lets the reindeer graze on our sedum roof and walks straight in. We think he actually likes this better than dealing with chimneys.
Adam & I stayed up until the NORAD tracker told us he was getting close.
Obviously our snacks were a hit. Here's what we woke up to the next morning.
Before anyone else questions it, Santa is very attuned to things everyone loves and are hard to get in Liechtenstein. This does include Dr Pepper (Adam), Tresemme Shampoo & Conditioner (Amanda), Soy Sauce (Charlotte), and Balloons (Olivia; not actually hard to get, but literally the only thing she asked Santa for).
After exploring our stockings, Adam made us a delicious breakfast of pancakes and bacon while the girls and I got cleaned up. Thanks to my aunts who visited last year, we had some Bisquick that I'd been holding back just for today. Washing my hair with luxury shampoo and eating American style pancakes was enough for me to say Christmas was a success.
But we still a tree full of presents to open.
We followed the German tradition of looking for our Weihnachtsgurke (Christmas pickle) and the person who finds it gets to open the first gift. We have done this tradition long before moving over here and now that I live here and have discussed this with German, Austrian & Swiss coworkers, I'm not convinced it is a German tradition, but rather something Americans made up to sound German. Alas, we will still look for the pickle on Christmas.
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| Olivia won & was quite excited about it |
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| The girls wanted to show me how they wrote the tag themselves |
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| We're worried about what sister got |
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| And us too, apparently |
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| When you get a new puzzle you have to stop opening things to put it together |
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| Same when you get a new book, you have to read for a minute |
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| Thankfully this one we convinced her we'd build later |
I have zero photographic evidence to support this statement, but Adam did get gifts too. I promise.
If ever there was proof of Christmas magic, its this. I drank an entire cup of tea while one played Playdoh and the other read a new book.
Merry Christmas to all & to all a good night!
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